And the stalled property market has also cut income from the charges that councils make when they grant planning permission.
Many councils are happy to grant planning permission for projects which they think might boost struggling neighbourhoods.
The hybrid bill to grant planning permission for the initial London-Birmingham route is now at committee stage in parliament.
On the upside, if you live in a conservation area, the council are more likely to grant planning permission to go down than for a loft.
Local authorities are not always willing to grant planning permission, especially when a plot could be used more lucratively, such as for shops.
But he said he was "minded" to grant planning permission at that site too, which would see a further four wells drilled and fracked.
Mr McDonald had sought to overturn a decision by Dublin city council in June to grant planning permission for the multi-million euro development.
The chairman of Friends of Richmond Park, Ron Crompton, has written to Khan, calling for an urgent investigation into how GLA officers came to grant planning permission for the Manhattan Loft Gardens development in contravention of the LVMF.
Under the coalition's proposed presumption in favour of development, councils will be required to grant planning permission to any development where a local plan is "absent, silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date".
Local councils still grant planning permission to new housing estates; developers and estate agents still advertise property "only 20 minutes from Paris on the RER", despite journey times being much longer.
July 2012 Amid signs that the chancellor is pressing Cameron to drop opposition to the third runway, key Osborne allies say the government should grant planning permission for both a third and fourth runway at Heathrow.
