Planning and infrastructure expert Robbie Owen of Pinsent Masons said: “This is a big 97 clause bill and ministers and officials have moved at real pace since the election to get it ready for introduction into parliament today. They will be planning for it to pass by the summer recess but, in the meantime, there are expected to be consultations on the regulations and guidance needed to implement the measures.”
Some of the measures are focused on supporting projects that constitute ‘nationally significant infrastructure projects’ (NSIPs) – projects that meet certain thresholds defined in the Planning Act 2008. Different thresholds apply to different types of infrastructure, such as large wind or solar farms, major water, road or rail projects, or significant commercial projects like gigafactories, data centres and laboratories.
Developers behind NSIPs require a development consent order (DCO) to proceed with their projects. The DCO process is separate to other consenting regimes where decision-making powers rest with local planning authorities – DCOs are made by government ministers, but applications are subject to strict procedural requirements before decisions are taken, including in relation to consultation with statutorily-designated agencies and stakeholders, as well as evaluation by one or more planning inspectors.
Further to a working paper published in January, among the proposed measures in the Bill relevant to NSIPs are proposals to streamline the consenting regime and ensure the documents that govern how applications for development consent for NSIPs are assessed – national policy statements (NPSs) – are updated more regularly; at least every five years, rather than the current longer periods. Further measures aim to reduce the opportunity for judicial review challenges to be raised against NPSs and NSIP decisions.
Owen said: “The reforms to the NSIP system are most welcome and many of them, such as regular updating of NPSs, have been long requested but none are a silver bullet. There seems little doubt that ministers will need to go much further if they are to deliver on their infrastructure commitments, particularly making 150 decisions on NSIPs in this parliament, both in relation to measures trailed in the working paper but where policy is still under development and new measures.”
“Crucially, these changes to the NSIP system and to judicial review procedures are unlikely to materially cut the amount of time taken to obtain consent for infrastructure projects. This is largely because the pre-application process will not be significantly simplified, despite changes to consultation and engagement requirements, and there are no proposals to stop judicial review cases that are arguable from delaying projects, often by between one or two years if not longer. Even if the Bill does succeed in cutting the determination period for NSIP applications to two years, as ministers have said, this will still be about six months longer than was being consistently achieved in the 2010s when the system first started operating,” he said.
A broader suite of planning reforms is also provided for under the Bill. Measures include the introduction of a new strategic planning system, to ensure there is a joined-up approach to meeting infrastructure needs across local planning authority areas, and changes to the current system of environmental impact assessment. Changes to planning decision-making processes are also planned, with a triage system for referring applications to planning officers on the one hand and planning committees on the other, envisaged.
Further reforms are proposed to the compulsory purchase regime to enable housebuilding, while the role of development corporations in enabling new homes and infrastructure delivery is to be strengthened. A new nature recovery fund is also to be established to help developers meet their environmental obligations.