Policy Explainer Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Going Batty

The multi-million pound ‘shed’ has become a symbol of a planning system that has prioritised environmental and localised concerns over broader national strategic goals … like better transport links, more housing, schools and hospitals.

Keeping all sides happy is a virtually impossible challenge, but it is one that the government is tackling head on with its Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

The legislation is a key part of the government’s commitment to rebuild Britain, kickstart economic growth and raise living standards. It aims to deliver on Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to become a government of ‘the builders, not the blockers’, including the ambitious ‘Plan for Change’ milestones of building 1.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on big infrastructure projects by speeding up and streamlining the planning process.

The Bill will also support delivery of the government’s Clean Power 2030 target by ensuring that key clean energy infrastructure projects are built as quickly as possible.

Big Changes

Some of the key measures in the Bill include:

• Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). This contains significant reforms to the consenting regime for NSIPs aimed at delivering a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure including reforms to the judicial review process and limits on appeals in cases deemed totally without merit.
• Local Planning Authority (LPA) Decision Making. This could mean that councillors will be stripped of powers to block all but the biggest and most contentious building schemes under plans to turbocharge development.
• Nature recovery. The Bill contains proposals for a more strategic approach to ecological mitigation through the introduction of a nature restoration levy to fund Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs). It could see Natural England preparing EDPs and setting out strategic conservation measures to address the environmental impact of development on protected sites or species. EDPs will be subject to public consultation and Secretary of State approval, with periodic monitoring and reporting requirements. Once made, they will be subject to a six-week challenge window.
• Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Reforms. Natural England will be given powers to seize farmland, allotments and other green spaces for nature restoration projects. In a bid to offset damage caused by new buildings, the environmental regulator will be given powers to compulsorily purchase land elsewhere in the country to rewild or turn into nature reserves. The changes are designed to spur the development of new towns, and the Bill also extends powers of the development corporations which will oversee them, including by allowing them to be used for “urban extensions” as well as standalone settlements.
• Energy and Bills. People living within 500 metres of new pylons will get up to £2,500 off electricity bills over ten years under incentives designed to reduce objections to clean power infrastructure.

Future Proof?

While a majority of infrastructure, property development and construction firm bosses welcomed the government’s backing for ‘the builders’ against ‘the blockers’, there were some more muted messages of support for the Bill that contained subtle hints that perhaps Starmer wasn’t being bold enough.

Julia Pyke, joint managing director of Sizewell C nuclear power station, said “the UK stands at a crossroads” and it must “either commit to bold, future-proof infrastructure or risk falling behind”.

Sizewell C is a new nuclear power station that will be built on the East Suffolk coast, next to Sizewell B, which will supply 6 million homes with low-carbon electricity.

She added: “Outdated planning rules and a lack of joined up thinking are blocking progress. Policy needs to be aligned with ambition. Now is the time to build smarter and invest in long-term solutions that drive prosperity and leave a legacy.”

An editorial in The Times on 11 March called the reforms “welcome, but too cautious”. It said new constraints on judicial review are “very modest”, noting that most ¬judicial reviews will still go ahead unimpeded.

The editorial said the Bill will make the planning system “somewhat less sticky” but concluded the government would have done better to adopt a more permissive European-style system, creating zones in which development was automatically allowed. This would reduce planning officers’ discretion and encourage development.