Giving the institute's initial response RIBA President Jack Pringle said:
 
“Good design and environmental sustainability need to be at the heart of a humane planning system – but on design grounds the White Paper has failed to deliver.
 
“We support deregulation, but not at any price. Of course we welcome efforts to cut red tape on microgeneration or small-scale applications so that planning attention can be focused where it needs to be. But unless good design is entrenched into the planning system, it just means that poor decisions can be made a little more quickly.

“We are glad to see investment in planning skills and while we’ve always supported more resources for planning departments, we are worried that the Government’s proposals for premium-rate planning fees will do nothing to improve the quality of decisions and will instead introduce a two-tier system.
 
“For the RIBA, the key point is about driving quality into the planning system. With its White Paper, the Government has delivered on quantity but not on quality.”