New proposals announced by No 10 this month would give England's mayors powers to take over some major planning applications as ministers try to speed up housing and regeneration schemes by shifting more responsibility to mayoral authorities.

The powers would apply to larger schemes: developments of more than 150 homes, more than 15,000 square metres of commercial space or buildings of 30 metres or taller.

Mayors will also be able to grant upfront permission for development, with the government saying this would allow building to begin without a developer making a separate application. The detailed paper has not yet been published. The important questions are what upfront permission covers, which checks still happen later and who can challenge a decision once the mayor has granted it.

For the North East, the reform would give North East Mayor Kim McGuinness and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen a larger role in major development decisions. If mayors are judged on growth, housing supply, brownfield land and regional investment, they are also being given more say over the projects that affect those outcomes.

The same logic sits behind fiscal devolution. The government's earlier devolution statement said mayors will receive a share of local income tax from 2028, with greater retention of business rates for councils and strategic authorities. The Institute for Fiscal Studies described this as revenue assignment: local areas sharing more directly in the gains when their tax base grows.

A mayoral authority that retains more revenue as its local tax base grows has a stronger interest in whether homes, offices, labs, logistics space and regeneration schemes get through the system. The fiscal settlement gives regional institutions more interest in the result. The planning settlement would give them more influence over a stage that can delay development.

The case for mayoral intervention is strongest where a scheme has clear regional value and has been slowed by local delay, fragmented decision-making or the politics of a single site. Housing markets do not respect council boundaries.

Nor do labour markets, transport corridors or commercial property demand. A stalled development in one borough can affect supply, rents, commuting patterns and investment decisions across a wider area. That is the argument for placing some planning decisions at regional level. The hard part is making sure the power addresses the real cause of delay.

The risk is that the same reform weakens local consent without improving delivery. Mayoral approval cannot fix the practical barriers that often decide whether a scheme is buildable: land, funding, infrastructure, viability, professional capacity and construction cost. If the underlying barrier sits elsewhere, moving the decision to the mayoral tier will not solve it.

The upfront permission proposal is the part that needs closest scrutiny. It could make development faster by deciding more of the principle of development earlier. Its value will depend on what is fixed upfront, what remains to be checked later and who carries the risk if the detail does not work.

For developers, certainty is valuable. Councils and communities will still care about the detail. Infrastructure, design, affordable housing, access, flood risk, schools, health capacity and public space all shape whether a planning permission can be built well, rather than merely approved quickly.

No 10 says decisions must still follow planning rules, local plans and national policy. Applicants will keep appeal rights and ministers will retain a backstop power to intervene.

Those safeguards are important, but they do not answer the practical question of how often mayors will use the power, what evidence they will need before doing so and how the public will be able to test those decisions.

Capacity is the other half of the reform. Two days before the planning announcement, No 10 said every mayoral authority would receive between five and ten civil servants on secondment for six to nine months from the autumn. The government said the pilot is intended to build capability, add capacity and speed up the transfer of power to local areas. Mayors will be able to request the type of skills they need.

The secondment plan is a sign that government knows the institutions need capability as well as legal powers. A regional planning decision needs evidence on viability, transport, infrastructure, housing need, land assembly and delivery risk. Without that capacity, the reform could add another decision point rather than speed up delivery.

London's mayor has long had a role in applications of potential strategic importance. Extending a version of that model beyond the capital is a significant institutional move, but London also has a mature City Hall planning function. The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority and Tees Valley Combined Authority will need comparable professional depth if they are expected to take on more planning responsibility.

The planning announcement also gives mayors a bigger say over national housing funding in their areas. Homes England will still lead on the largest projects, but No 10 says its funding and expertise will be focused on priorities agreed with local mayors. Mayors outside London will also be able to charge a levy on development to fund major infrastructure.

That places planning, housing funding, infrastructure contributions and local tax incentives with the same tier of government. The policy question is whether mayoral authorities can turn those powers into delivered schemes.

More power also changes accountability. Mayors have often been able to argue that their ambitions are constrained by councils, Whitehall or the funding system. That argument becomes harder as more power moves to the mayoral tier. If major schemes are blocked, delayed or mishandled, the mayor will be part of the accountability chain. If they are approved and unpopular, the mayor will own that too.

For the North East economy, the practical test will be whether this helps real schemes move. The region has brownfield land, regeneration ambitions and housing need, but many major projects still depend on public funding, public land, long development agreements or later-stage detailed permissions before they become delivered places. Planning reform is only useful if it helps schemes move through those stages.

The consultation, due after the 23 August announcement, should answer four practical questions: which applications mayors can call in, what upfront permission actually grants, what still needs local approval and how the public can challenge a decision. Until those answers are published, the announcement says who may get more power, but leaves the working rules unresolved.