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It’d need the loopholes carefully closing for sure. The current ‘must have begun’ isn’t sufficient, as you say, builders just dig a hole and the planning is active forever.
They love a loophole. On a big Barratt development near me one of the conditions was they had to have built a second access road by the time half the estate was built to ensure car traffic flowed. They built it, but never opened it so they could use it to store materials and for plant access. The council challenged it but the wording said ‘built’ and it was built, so Barratt were in the clear. In rush hour residents could queue for 45 minutes to get out of the end of their road. Lol.
Hefty
Planning permission expires after 3 years and you can no longer simply renew it. The intention was to prevent land banking but developers know how to work around that rule of course.