The Planning and Infrastructure Bill (the “PIB”) was introduced to Parliament on Tuesday 11 March.
The PIB brings together various planning reforms that are designed to “get Britain building again and deliver economic growth”, supporting delivery of the government’s Plan for Change milestones of building 1.5 million homes and achieving 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament.
The government has moved at pace to bring forward this legislation and it is showing no signs of slowing with the second reading set for 24 March.
Nationally significant infrastructure projects
Chapter 1 of the PIB contains a number of reforms relating to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (“NSIP”) regime, with the aim of tackling what the government considers to be the biggest barriers to delivery of NSIPs:
- National Policy Statements (“NPS”) will be reviewed and updated at least every five years, with a more streamlined process for parliament to make changes to NPSs where needed outside of the formal review process;
- The pre-application consultation and acceptance stages of the consenting process will be streamlined;
- A power for the Secretary of State to direct that certain developments can be dealt with under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 application process where it is considered to be more proportionate; and
- Removal of the paper permission stage for judicial review challenges to NPSs, and Development Consent Order challenges that are deemed to be “totally without merit” will have no right to appeal.
Electricity infrastructure
Grid connections for clean energy projects are to be given priority, replacing the current ‘first come, first served’ approach. The change, is aimed at providing greater certainty on connection, and to accelerate connections for industrial sites and data centres where energy connections are of course a central consideration.
The PIB also gives the government powers to implement a mandatory, centralised approach to providing bill discounts to communities closest to new or significantly upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure. The intended outcome is to ensure communities can share the benefit when hosting network infrastructure that delivers a national need.
Planning
Planning fees in England are currently set nationally, resulting in funding shortfalls for many local planning authorities (“LPAs”). Now LPAs will be able to set their own (capped at cost recovery).
A national scheme of delegation for English planning decisions will be introduced – the intention being to introduce greater certainty on which decisions may be delegated to officers, and ensure planning committees’ resources are allocated appropriately.
Strategic planning authorities will be required to prepare a spatial development strategy (“SDS”), forming part of the development plan. The PIB sets out various requirements for SDSs. They must ensure that development contributes to climate change mitigation, and take account of any local nature recovery strategy. The PIB sets out the procedure for the preparation and adoption of SDSs, and gives the Secretary of State powers to intervene in certain circumstances.
Development and nature recovery
The PIB establishes an alternative approach for developers to meet environmental obligations relating to protected sites and species. It allows Natural England (or another designated delivery body) to adopt Environmental Delivery Plans (“EDPs”) which will set out the strategic action to be taken to address the impacts that specific types of development will have on protected sites or species. The EDPs will contain ‘nature restoration levy’ charging schedules detailing rates and other criteria by reference to which the amount of the levy payable is to be determined.
Importantly, where an EDP is in place and a developer utilises it, the developer would no longer be required to undertake their own assessments, or deliver project-specific mitigations. Whilst the EDP framework is branded by the government as a ‘win-win’ for development and nature, others will regard this as an unwelcome circumvention of important environmental protections with no guarantee that actual nature recovery can or will be achieved through this pooling mechanism.
Development corporations
Development corporations are statutory bodies set up for the purpose of urban development and regeneration. Changes to the legislative framework for development corporations are reflective of the government’s focus on building large-scale new communities and New Towns across England.
The PIB creates greater consistency and flexibility for development corporations, by correcting existing ambiguity and inconsistencies in existing legislation. All development corporations will be subject to the same objectives, to aim to contribute to sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the list of infrastructure they can provide will be standardised across the different models (including the addition of heat networks).
There is a focus on transport. Existing restrictions on development corporations providing rail and tram infrastructure will be lifted, and a new duty will be created for local transport authorities to cooperate with development corporations. Where this duty is not fulfilled, the Secretary of State will have the power to transfer transport powers from local transport authorities to the relevant development corporation.
Transport infrastructure
A series of amendments to the Highways Act 1980 and Transport and Works Act 1992 are set out in the PIB.
The amendments to the Highways Act 1980 will allow public authorities to recover further costs for their services and impose standardised deadlines for decision making on certain schemes and orders. In a similar vein, the amendments to the Transport and Works Act 1992 are with a view to streamlining and improving the efficiency of delivering new transport schemes.
The PIB will also enable electric vehicle charge point operators in England to install public charge points without the need to obtain a separate s.50 street works licence where they have obtained a street works permit. This is intended to speed up the roll-out of electric vehicle charge points.
Compulsory purchase
Finally, the PIB includes amendments to the compulsory purchase process and compensation rules, which follows the government’s ongoing programme of CPO reform.
The changes pave the way for the electronic service of statutory notices and simplification of newspaper notices to speed up procedure. Amendments will enable acquiring authorities to confirm their own CPOs with modifications, provided they do not affect a person’s interest in land, unless by their consent. The PIB also introduces expedited procedures for taking possession of land and its vesting by agreement under the General Vesting Declaration procedure.
In terms of amendments in respect of compulsory purchase compensation, the PIB adjusts basic and occupier’s loss payments to better reflect inconvenience and upheaval caused. Amendments are made to exclude certain home loss payments, to ensure that those whose neglect of a property which has prompted a CPO do not benefit from that neglect through a home loss payment. Significantly, amendments are made to section 14A of the Land Compensation Act 1961, so that the value attributed to the prospect of granting of planning permission (hope value) can be disregarded. This builds upon the amendments in respect of disregarding hope value made in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023, by extending this to parish, town and community councils where they are facilitating affordable or social housing provision.
DWF has a market-leading development and infrastructure planning practice, and advises clients at every stage of the consenting process from applicants and promoters to third parties, statutory undertakers and public authorities.
If you would like to discuss any of the points raised in this article please contact one of our experts.
