Planning permission deadlines will be extended to save hundreds of construction projects from delays, ministers will announce today.

Longer hours will also be allowed on work sites to help with social distancing and planning appeals could be speeded up.

Boris Johnson is expected to promise to ‘build, build, build’ in a speech next week that he hopes will redefine his premiership.

He will promise a huge programme of investment to revive the pandemic-ravaged economy.

Planning permission usually expires after three years if work has not been started. But sites that have an expiry date between the start of lockdown and the end of this year will now see their consent extended to next April.

This will prevent work that has been disrupted by the pandemic from stopping altogether.

A developer will not need to submit a new application where permission or consent expires in this period, reducing costs and time delays for firms and local planning authorities.

The Government estimates that by the end of this month alone, more than 400 residential permissions providing more than 24,000 new homes would have expired.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick MP said: ‘Building the homes the country needs is central to the mission of this Government and is an important part of our plans to recover from the impact of the coronavirus.

‘New laws will enable us to speed up the pace of planning appeals and save hundreds of construction sites from being cancelled before they have a chance to get spades in the ground, helping to protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and create many others.

‘Taken together, these measures will help to keep workers safe and our economy moving as we work together to bounce back from the pandemic.’

New measures will also be brought in to speed up the appeals process.

The Planning Inspectorate will be given the power to run more than one procedure – written representations, hearings and inquiries – at the same time when dealing with a planning appeal.

This will allow appeals to conclude more quickly.

Last year a pilot programme found that this more than halved the time taken for appeal inquiries, from 47 weeks to 23 weeks.

The measures will also help builders to negotiate more flexible working hours with their local councils for a temporary period.

This should make it easier to follow public health guidance and, by staggering builders’ arrival times, public transport will be less busy and the risk of infection reduced.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, the property developer Richard Desmond showed Jenrick the video on his phone when the pair sat next to each other at a Conservative party fundraising dinner.

“What I did was I showed him the video,” Desmond told the Sunday Times, adding that Jenrick had watched it for “three or four minutes”, and adding: “It’s quite long, so he got the gist.”

Jenrick subsequently overturned a decision by a local council and the government’s planning inspectorate in order to approve a 500-apartment, 44-storey development at Westferry Printworks, a former printing plan in east London.

Labour will use the opportunity of a three-hour opposition day debate on Wednesday to discuss the controversy.

The shadow communities secretary, Steve Reed, is expected to press Jenrick on whether officials asked him to recuse himself from the decision, since viewing the video would appear to constitute lobbying by Desmond, potentially giving rise to a conflict of interest.

It was the prospect of an opposition day debate last week, and the accompanying vote, that helped force Boris Johnson to extend free school meals vouchers over the school summer holidays, after a campaign from the footballer Marcus Rashford.

Jenrick’s move to approve the Westferry development in January came a day before the introduction of the community infrastructure levy, to be used for local education and health projects, which would have cost Desmond’s company at least £40m.

It later emerged the property developer had made a £12,000 donation to the Tory party, two weeks after the planning decision in his favour was made.

When the local council, Tower Hamlets, sought a judicial review of Jenrick’s decision, he conceded the case, admitting he had acted unlawfully – and reversed the decision.

Asked about his contact with Desmond at the fundraising event, Jenrick told MPs last Monday: “The department was fully informed of my attendance at the event. I discussed with my officials that the applicant had raised the matter. I advised the applicant that I was not able to discuss it.” He said he was “inadvertently” seated next to Desmond.

The cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, is examining details of the case provided by Jenrick, but No 10 has denied this amounts to a formal investigation. Downing Street has been pressed on whether the prime minister or any of his team had met Desmond.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, defended his cabinet colleague on Sunday, telling the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “Mr Jenrick answered questions for an hour in the House of Commons this week; he’s put out a statement about this which is perfectly reasonable.”

Jenrick declined to answer an urgent question tabled by Reed, sending a junior minister, Paul Scully, in his place: but MPs took the opportunity to quiz him about the issue when he appeared for regular departmental questions last Monday.

A spokesperson for the communities secretary said: “Mr Jenrick and the applicants were put on the same table for the dinner, although Mr Jenrick was not aware of this prior to arriving at the venue. The planning application was raised, but Mr Jenrick said it would not be appropriate to discuss the matter or for him to pass comment on it.”

The cabinet minister at the centre of a planning scandal is facing questions over a second case. The government department headed by Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, took control of a plan for a national Holocaust memorial days after he met the project’s main backers.

The idea of a memorial has wide support but the proposed site at Victoria Tower Gardens, a grade II listed park near the Palace of Westminster, is contentious. Opponents, including the Royal Parks and English Heritage, say it will obstruct protected views of parliament and alter the park’s character.

The application was called in by Esther McVey, then the housing minister, in November after Jenrick, her boss, recused himself because he had publicly backed the memorial.

Calling in the application stripped Westminster city council of its power to rule on the £102m project.

Robert Jenrick watched a promotional video for a £1bn housing development on media mogul Richard Desmond’s personal mobile phone weeks before overruling his officials and approving the scheme.

The secretary of state for housing, communities and local government viewed the clip promising a “new urban oasis” in east London during a Conservative Party fund-raiser held at the Savoy Hotel last November. The disclosure came in a rare interview with Desmond, who said: “What I did was I showed him the video.” He said the minister watched it for “three or four minutes”, adding: “It’s quite long, so he got the gist.”

The allegation is a challenge to Jenrick’s claim that he did not discuss the development in any way at the £900-a-head dinner and will reignite a “cash-for- favours” row over his decision.

The drumbeat from Westminster is getting louder and points to an unmistakable conclusion. Boris Johnson will this week announce that the two-metre social distancing guidance will be reduced to one metre from July 4. Pubs, restaurants and cafés, many of which would not be viable if the two-metre guidance had remained in place, will have a chance of salvaging some trade.

It is too late for the millions of pints of beer that have had to be thrown away, but this move is better than the alternative of continued closure or trading so restricted that it is hardly worth the effort.

Reducing the two-metre guidance also provides a better opportunity for sorting out schools in time for next term. Gavin Williamson may not inspire much confidence, but the education secretary’s ambition of getting all pupils back into school in September, backed by the prime minister, has a far better chance of success if social distancing guidelines are relaxed.

NHSX, the health service technology unit responsible for the government’s failed contact-tracing app, attempted to block rival apps to protect its own, hampering efforts to track the early spread of the coronavirus.

Developers of several apps were urged to stop work by either NHSX or the Ministry of Defence, who told them their apps might distract attention from NHSX’s app when it was launched. Last week the app was abandoned after three months, with work beginning on an alternative design without any deadline.

Prof Tim Spector, of King’s College London, said that NHSX had treated his Covid symptom tracker research team as “the enemy”. “We were hampered from the beginning, in March when we first contacted NHSX,” he told the Observer. “They were very worried about our app taking attention away from theirs and confusing the public.

“Lots of signals went to places like the universities, my university, the medical charities and the royal colleges not to back our app because that would interfere with their one.”

When the pandemic hit the UK, tech workers, academics and health professionals responded to Boris Johnson’s call for a national effort by creating smartphone apps to help track the spread of the virus.

The Covid Sympton Study app has 3.5 million users and has helped chart the emergence of symptoms such as the loss of taste and smell. Evergreen Life, with 800,000 users, has been working with the universities of Liverpool and Manchester and spotted signs of the outbreak in Middlesbrough before tests had been carried out. The government’s app, meanwhile, was downloaded by tens of thousands of people on the Isle of Wight and never formally launched.

The rival apps could still form a vital part of the early warning system if, as some scientists fear, a second wave of Covid-19 hits the UK. The Covid Symptom Study app indicates that while the number of people reporting symptoms across the UK has been decreasing, numbers in London have remained static for the past three weeks.

Spector said that although people in the NHS had wanted to work with his team, they told him privately that everything needed to go through NHSX, which was set up by Matt Hancock after he became health secretary, and previously operated outside the main structure of the health service. “We naively thought they would sort of take our app over or incorporate them into one,” he said. “The whole point was to help the NHS, to find the hotspots so they could get the resources to the right hospitals.”

Instead, he said he was told the app was a problem. “The idea was that this NHSX app was going to be the saviour, another world-beating thing,” Spector said. “It was going to be an all-singing, all-dancing app that does everything: diagnoses you, it tells you about tests for you and who you’ve come into contact with.

“They were saying: ‘This will make your app redundant’. Their app would come out, there’d be a huge blaze of publicity and everyone would drop our app. We said: ‘Well, if that does happen, we’ll hand over and work with you, it’s in the interests of the country.’ Theirs just got more and more delayed – nothing ever happened. Ours got more and more successful,” Spector said.

Had ministers backed the app in England, more people would have signed up more quickly, Spector said. “We would have got more fine-grained data earlier. Their attitude prevented other branches of government working with us.” Users of the Covid Symptom Study who report symptoms can now order a test directly through the app. “That would have started earlier,” he said.

Spector said he was working with the joint biosecurity centre, which has been set up to create an early warning system for Covid-19 and other diseases. “Plenty of people within the NHS have been very helpful,” he said, naming Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. King’s will be launching a campaign on Monday to persuade the government to support the app.

The devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland also adopted the app early on. “We have proportionally many more users there,” he said. “I know, from speaking to other people from the Ministry of Defence who were helping out, they put even more pressure on some of the other apps to close them down early.”

NHSX has set up “Project Oasis” to gather data from eight tracking apps. One technology firm characterised the relationship between them as “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”.

Ian Gass of Agitate, which set up Ink C-19, an app designed to make reporting symptoms as simple as possible, said he was approached by the MoD in March and described the interaction as “not friendly”: “Not that it was aggressive, but I got the impression that there was just a lot of panic going on in governmental circles, and they didn’t know what to do or how to do it. They intimated that they’re doing stuff, and we don’t want others doing it.”

Agitate is a leading expert in tech security and Gass tried to advise NHSX in March that its app design, which attempted to use Bluetooth signals to sense when a phone came close to another, was flawed. In theory, the app was supposed to keep a record of other phones, and if a person developed symptoms, the app could send an alert to those phones. Yet the app only recognised 4% of Apple phones using Bluetooth.

“The whole overall approach at the moment is this weird, almost paranoid state where the government says publicly that they’re asking for help, but then they don’t want it,” Gass said.

Opening hours for all 14 toilets will be extended from 8am to 8pm during the summer at a cost of almost £77,000 to ensure they are cleaned to stringent Covid-19 standards.

The toilets will be cleaned four times a day in the summer with viracidal cleaning products and three times a day in the winter. Every week the toilets will have a full site disinfected deep clean.

The council’s street cleaning summer budget of £62,000 is also restored to help deal with the expected influx of visitors in the coming weeks, and the cabinet also agreed to lobby its three district MPs for more funding to help the district through the pandemic.

But calls from Conservative councillors for all 27 public toilets in the district to reopen were rejected as it would ‘cost somewhere between a lot of money and a hell of a lot of money’.

The chosen scheme whereby toilets close at 8pm in the summer and 5pm in the winter would cost £76,962 rather than the £213,135 to reopen all 17 currently closed toilets.

Cllr Paul Arnott, Leader of the council, told the meeting: “Our coastal towns and major shopping areas must have safe Covid-19 compliant lavatories restored as a matter of extreme urgency. The problem is that this will cost somewhere between a lot of money and a hell of a lot of money.

The toilets that will re-open from Monday, June 29, with opening hours from 8am to 8pm in the summer months are:

Cliff Path (West End, Steamer Steps), Budleigh Salterton

Magnolia Centre, Exmouth

Phear Park, Exmouth

Market Place, Sidmouth

Toilets that re-opened from May and will have opening times extended from 8am to 8pm during the summer months from next Monday are:

West Street Car Park, Axminster

East End (Lime Kiln), Budleigh Salterton

Jubilee Gardens, Beer

Foxholes Car Park, Exmouth

Manor Gardens, Exmouth

Queens Drive/Old Lifeboat, Exmouth

King Street, Honiton

West Walk, Seaton

Connaught Gardens, Sidmouth

Triangle, Sidmouth

Calling for additional toilets to be reopen, Cllr Ian Barlow, chairman of Sidmouth town council, said: “Now the town is open, we have no toilets in the town and that is not acceptable, and people are reliving themselves outside of the toilets and that has to be more of a health hazard. If you want people to come to the town, you have to give them the facilities.”

Cllr Andrew Moulding, leader of the Conservative Group, said that the need to reopen all the toilets was extremely important and vital to help support businesses. He said: “People will go where they can get the best service and we should give the service the people of East Devon expect.”

Cllr Ian Hall added: “This is our best opportunity to support the economy and give East Devon the best chance to recover, and we don’t want to be in a position where we regret not doing the best we could in the circumstances.”

Cllr Mike Howe said that reopening all the toilets was the best option for the economy, but said that a compromise option whereby all the toilets were reopened but with reduced opening hours in the winter should be looked at as well. He added: “It would cost less as only extending the opening hours in the summer and gives the business the best chance to recover, as if the businesses don’t survive, we will be in an even worse situation then we are now.”

But Cllr John Loudoun said that while he would love to see all 27 toilets open, but the council would have to find another £140,000 to do so, while Cllr Paul Hayward said that is the council isn’t pragmatic then it faces running out of money.

Cllr Jack Rowland, portfolio holder for finance, added: “I would love to see all the toilets open to support business and industry, but we are not in an ideal situation and have to face some realities. We have to face reality as if we reopen all the toilets, where does the money come from?”

Cllr Jess Bailey added over the opening of the additional four toilets: “This strikes the balance between opening up additional toilets and extra hours in the summer and recognising our finances”.

Following the meeting Cllr Geoff Jung, the council’s portfolio holder for the Coast, Countryside and Environment, said: “I am really pleased that we are able to re-open and extend the hours for our public toilet offering. As we come out of these most challenging of times we will be aiming to return to our normal high standard of services and facilities, albeit in some places reduced coverage as services have to be Covid-19 compliant which is costing more.”

But skateparks, playgrounds, and multi-use areas in the district will remain closed, with a council spokesman saying: “While we understand the eagerness by some to use these much-loved facilities, government guidance has advised that playgrounds and similar facilities must remain closed for the time being until we are told otherwise.

“These facilities attract large numbers of people and the activities they are used for would, by their nature, lead to breaches of social distancing. The council would be unable to regulate social distancing at these sites or clean all surfaces to the frequency needed to prevent the potential for the virus to be present.”

Cllr Jung added: “I appreciate that young people want to use our skateparks and multi-use game areas, and this is something we hope can be achieved in the near future. We are constantly reviewing all our facilities and it is hoped all play areas will be considered safe to be used shortly as the government further relaxes the emergency measures.”

One is the coronavirus model of a “second spike” and half a million deaths, creation of Imperial College London statisticians, led by the epidemiologist Neil Ferguson. The other is the Brexit model of Professor Patrick Minford, forecasting a surge of 4% in British growth in the event of a hard Brexit. Both modellers have their critics. But no matter. To Boris Johnson, the model is god. Forget common sense. Maths cannot lie. The models hover over today’s Downing Street like two swords of Damocles.

Johnson can reasonably argue that he was not alone in following Imperial College to blanket lockdown. He meant well. But now he is trapped by it. Despite his project fear and its poll approval, lockdown failed to stem Europe’s second worst death rate. According to the OECD, it is also about to inflict on Britain Europe’s worst recession – an 11.5% fall in GDP, compared with Germany’s 6.6%. Unemployment without equal since the 1930s may result.

One might think that, having cut off the economy’s two legs, Johnson might be kind to its arms. But no. This week he and his Brexiter colleague Michael Gove indicated that talks with the EU on a trade deal had stalled. There was no way they would seek the extension on offer at the end of this month. They are putting it about that, with the economy in ruins anyway, no one will actually notice more blood spilt over stalled EU trade.

Like many half-hearted remainers, I have accepted Brexit as a new reality. But I could never imagine no trade deal with the EU. It was and is barking mad. As with blanket lockdown, no-deal Brexit is treated by Johnson and Gove as undergraduate psychology – of bluff, double-bluff and debating points. They regard the EU’s Michel Barnier as the cad of the lower fifth. Put him against the wall, they jeer, and he will fold.

There is absolutely no reason for failing to extend the current EU talks, at least until heads on both sides can clear. The British economy, partly through the government’s own fault, faces appalling contraction. The economy’s second biggest sector, hospitality and tourism, has been devastated.

Johnson may think Britons are so bound up in the horrors of his first model that they will not notice the horrors of the second. Apart from such irresponsibility, that cannot apply to businesses and their employees. British exporters face an instant tariff wall from January. Farmers may have to slaughter animals. Aviation, policing, and food and medicine supply chains will choke. Banking arrangements may be cobbled together, but the trickle of financial emigration to Europe’s capitals will become a flood. And for what? So Johnson can keep his appointment with his own chosen date.

Searchers after comfort may find some in the prime minister’s addiction to U-turns. He made a significant one last year when he agreed to an unavoidable customs border with Northern Ireland. Peering through the murk, we can see the hope of a compromise on fish, where at least Britain has right on its side.

Other EU concessions are harder to discern. A grownup arrangement should be possible on trade arbitration. One is less plausible on common trading standards. Compliance to such standards is the essence of a sophisticated free market between adjacent economies, but Johnson seems averse. The idea that a deal with the US might ever compensate for the EU, let alone now, is fantastical.

In other words, a version of the old single-market option of sharing Europe’s “economic area” should make as much sense to a Eurosceptic as to a former remainer. It is said that the necessary concessions – or U-turns – could be cobbled together by Christmas. But this involves Downing Street genuinely wanting it.

Why Johnson should want to put British businesses and their workers through the hell of yet more uncertainty is a mystery. He says he must keep faith with those who voted for Brexit, but this is infantile. They were a narrow majority, and were never asked to vote for no deal. A poll last month was emphatic. Three-quarters of respondents do not want to leave the EU without a deal. That includes 64% of Tories and 57% of leavers.

There cannot be a majority for no deal in parliament. Keir Starmer and the opposition have a duty to do all they can to force Downing Street to reverse its intransigence. They must stop Johnson doubling-down on insanity, and declare death to the models and the maths.

Its safety head Nick Coombe said some building firms had barely improved since the Grenfell disaster in 2017.

The Federation of Master Builders, which represents small contractors, said it was trying to create a safer industry, with licensed firms.

Build UK, which represents the wider industry, declined to comment.

The National Fire Chiefs Council said the construction industry was “broken” and couldn’t be trusted to follow rules.

Mr Coombe said many reforms were needed, especially to building regulations, which allow builders to choose an inspector to certify their building safety.

The current inspection system was devised by the government in the 1980s to speed up the timetable for buildings.

Ministers were concerned that local council inspectors were delaying projects, so they allowed private inspectors to compete on speed of approval and cost.

Tower block “free-for-all”

The builder effectively employs the safety inspector: critics say it’s like students choosing who they’ll pay to mark their exams – except people’s lives are risk.

Mr Coombe said: “This doesn’t drive standards up. It means the developer controls the amount of visits from a building inspector. We have had people shopping around for building controllers who would accept their work.

“If you build a house extension the local authority are all over you. If you build a tower block or a shopping centre there’s a free-for-all.”

Mr Coombe’s comments amplify a recent NFCC submission to a post-Grenfell review of building regulations.

In that document the fire council warn: “It is our opinion that some within the wider industry are not acting responsibly when designing and approving buildings.

“Banning things [such as flammable cladding] is no guarantee that people will follow the rules, and it is our view that much of the combustible cladding on the side of buildings is already banned under the current regime.

“To date, there is little evidence of a culture change [since Grenfell]. There is much more to be done to ensure the safety of building occupants, now and in the future.

“NFCC advocates that the current building control system is overhauled to ensure that it is robust, independent of client and market influence, and has sufficient teeth to enforce appropriate fire safety standards as necessary.”

Safety disagreements

The response to the horrific Grenfell fire has had some side-effects. Some building firms report huge delays to construction, while developers, architects and builders argue over liability for safety.

The owner of one building firm, who didn’t want to be named, said: “Building projects are being dictated to now by the insurers. Premiums have shot up. There’s a passing of responsibility right down the food chain [from developers to architects to contractors to sub-contractors].”

The Grenfell effect has also deterred architects from designing buildings with wood in the wall construction.

Governments in the USA, Canada and Europe are promoting the use of timber in buildings to help combat climate change, because it locks in CO2 that trees have taken from the atmosphere.

The USA, for instance, has certified 17-storey wood framed buildings after extensive fire testing.

Meanwhile in the UK the government proposes that the maximum height of buildings with wood in the walls to be no more than four storeys.

Fires tests needed

Mr Coombe said the NFCC didn’t want to block the use of wood in buildings, but insisted that fire safety tests should be done in the UK to prove the safety of design.

A government spokesperson said: “The Grenfell Tower fire was a devastating tragedy and we are as determined as ever to ensure this can never happen again.

“Safety is paramount – that’s why we’ve announced the biggest changes to building safety in a generation which will deliver meaningful and lasting change for residents.

“We are carefully considering the responses to our consultation and will respond in due course.”

Brian Berry from the Federation of Master Builders said: “Our members, the vast majority of whom work in domestic repair and maintenance or are small house builders, know that quality and safety must be at the heart of building projects.

“We are leading moves to create a more professionalised industry and advocate licensing of all UK construction companies.”

BuildUK has a very broad membership across the industry and on some issues its members find it difficult to reach a consensus.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) has released the latest information for the R-rate, which indicates the average number of people that an infected person will pass the virus on to, shows that it is currently at 0.6-0.9 in the South West.

This is the lowest range in across England and is a turnaround from a week ago when the region was deemed to have the country’s highest R-rate of 0.8-1.1.

Across England, the R-rate currently sits at 0.7-0.9 which is lower than last week when the figure was 0.7-1.

Taking over as the region with the highest level is the Midlands were the rate stands at 0.8-1 while London and the North West are at 0.7-1.

Elsewhere, the R-rate range in the East of England, South East and North East and Yorkshire is 0.7-0.9.

The latest figures come on the same day that the UK’s chief medical officers agreed to downgrade the coronavirus alert level from four to three.

This means the epidemic is in general circulation but transmission is no longer “high or rising exponentially”.

Earlier today (June 19), NHS England confirmed that hospitals in Devon and Cornwall had gone a fourth consecutive day without reporting the death of a COVID-19 patient.

Fortunately, the 52-year old was stood a “fair distance” away from the bridge at the time or the consequences could have been fatal.

In an attempt to alert local residents of the dangerous cliffs, Jacky uploaded the image onto a local community page.

One viewer commented: “Been looking dodgy for a few months now.”

Another added: “This is why we don’t let our kids near the rocks. Hopefully other parents will do the same.”

It is understood that this large piece of rock coming away from the cliff face is the same boulder the crashed into the railings yesterday (June 18).

However, this is yet to be confirmed.

East Devon District Council (EDDC), are aware of the incident and a spokesperson said: “We have clarified that the owner of the land in question is the National Trust.

“The bridge is a footpath structure maintained by the Devon County Council rights of way department.”

Devon County Council and National Trust have been approached for comment.

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