The chances of these stores being given the go-ahead is likely to increase if Greg Clark, the planning minister, succeeds in his planned reform of planning laws giving a default "yes" to development.
Can you imagine that in London?" There is some hope that the government will change its position – the MPs of the communities and local government committee have urged ministers, in a report published before Christmas, to drop the notion of the default "yes" to development.
On Monday night it was not clear if the revised document would preserve the phrase that the "default answer … is yes" to sustainable development, but a government insider said there was "a powerful presumption" in favour of sustainable development, and that "development should be approved unless the costs significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits".
At the heart of this drive from the Treasury – which may be given full voice on Wednesday – has been the proposition that there must be a default "yes" to any "sustainable development" – supermarkets, roads, power stations – irrespective of local opinionor the damage to our efforts to fight global warming.
"We currently approve 88% of all applications and we've said that we will always say yes to good developments.
"Silly, isn't it," he writes, "to recall that tiny moment of character development after all these years?" Silly, yes, to think of it as character development.
Political stories made headlines throughout the day, from a London Met police officer on the job proposing to his partner on the other side of the barriers in the middle of the parade – he said yes – to Justine Greening, the international development secretary, casually announcing on Twitter that she's in a relationship with a woman.
"I found myself, after the first year, saying yes to a lot of exciting projects, but watching my personal development suffer a bit," he says.
He abolished brownfield targets and said the default answer to development should be "yes".
The phrase 'the default answer to development proposals is yes' is not statesmanlike.
The revised national planning policy framework will be published on Tuesday after months of opposition triggered by a phrase in the original document stating that "the default answer to development proposals is yes, so long as they are sustainable".
