Germany's second planning-acceleration law: the "Baugesetzbuch-Upgrade"

The Bundestag held its first reading of a bill to modernise urban- and spatial-planning law, the next acceleration step after the 2025 "Bau-Turbo." It streamlines and digitises land-use approvals, declares housebuilding an "overriding public interest," and gives municipalities more power to act against derelict properties.

Germany turning to planning law itself, not just funding, to override local objections to housebuilding mirrors the UK's own planning-reform fights, and the derelict-property powers speak to UK high-street and empty-homes debates.