U-turn on 'no-say' planning

Ministers will this week back down on plans to take away Britons' rights to challenge the building of nuclear dumps and power stations, airport runways, motorways and other controversial developments at public inquiries.

The U-turn will mark a major victory for The Independent on Sunday, which first revealed the plans a year ago, and has campaigned to have them scrapped ever since.

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, has been re-examining the politically explosive plans, which were drawn up by Lord Falconer, one of the Prime Minister's closest friends, as part of proposed wide-ranging changes to the planning system.

They suggested that Parliament should decide on the developments, allowing public inquiries only to examine such details as landscaping and the colour of gates – enabling the Governmentin effect to make planning decisions by decree.

Earlier this month, a House of Commons select committee roundly said that it would cause the public to "lose confidence in the inquiry system" while failing to speed up the planning process. Even some of those industries that the proposal was most designed to benefit have opposed it as unworkable and undemocratic

Mr Prescott is expected to announce on Thursday that the Government no longer wants Parliament to decide where the developments should go, or to stop the public opposing them at inquiries. But he will also stress that he wants radical change to make the planning system faster and more efficient. The first flashpoint over controversial new developments will be the expected call for new airport runways. Ministers predict that the number of air passengers will almost double from 180 million to 340 million, and will insist on at least one more runway being built in South-east England.

Any expansion will attract enormous opposition. On Friday, some of Britain's leading pressure groups – including the National Trust, Friends of the Earth, the National Society for Clean Air and the Council for the Protection of Rural England – will launch a campaign against expansion, called Airport Watch.