Regional development agency (RDA) property will be sold off as part of a structural reform plan published yesterday by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

The plan, which sets deadlines for implementation of the Coalition’s proposals, includes  considering the future of all government offices in the regions, as well as selling off RDA and government office property before April 2012.

Other key targets are for a localism bill to be passed by November this year and a new national planning policy to be put in place based on ‘open source planning’, to be in place by April 2012.

Decentralisation minister Greg Clark said: “We’re busting open the established way of doing things. The department will now only work to empower people, not to keep Whitehall in power.

“Councils are no longer going to be strangled by prescribed one-size-fits diktats on the one hand and smothered by regional bureaucracy on the other.

“We won’t be micromanaging, second guessing, and interfering in your affairs any more. We’re going to put citizens and communities in control.”

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