On 11 March, the Government introduced the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to Parliament. The Bill embodies the means by which the government plans to build 1.5m homes, drive economic growth and make Britain a clean energy superpower - as such it proposes various reforms, including to compulsory purchase orders (CPOs), strategic planning and development corporations. This article discusses the key takeaways from the Bill.
Key takeaways at this stage are as follows:
- CPO reform – ensuring landowner compensation is not ‘excessive’. Speeding up process of removing hope value for projects that are in the public interest. Inspectors, councils or mayors to be empowered to make decisions instead of the Secretary of State, where there are no objections.
- Strategic planning - spatial development strategies to be developed by mayors or local authorities across England. Intended to cement the link between development needs and infrastructure requirements.
- Planning committees - national scheme of delegation to streamline planning decisions. Determines applications to be reviewed by officers and those which are instead to go to committee. Controls the size of planning committees and introduces training for committee members.
- Development corporations - strengthening development corporations thereby enabling large-scale developments, including new towns.
- Energy infrastructure - measures to prioritise grid connections for clean energy projects (including wind and solar power) aimed at achieving green and clean power by 2030. A ‘first ready, first connected’ system is being introduced. Developers to be required to provide community benefits and funding, including for local sports, education and leisure facilities and programmes. New funding mechanism for £200,000 per kilometre of overhead electricity cable and £530,000 per substation, for local communities – Government expects some projects to provide tens of millions of pounds investment. Forestry authorities, including the Forestry Commission, to use publicly managed land develop renewable energy projects and to sell the electricity generated. Residents living within 500 meters of new electricity pylons to receive up to £2,500 off their energy bills over ten years. New measures to streamline the installation of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.
- Nature Restoration Fund – being established to pool contributions and fund large scale environmental interventions.
By way of reminder, the Bill builds on changes the Government has already applied to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which envisages a ‘brownfield first’ approach to development. At the same time, the updated NPPF recognises that development will need to happen on other land too, so it requires the review of green belt land in local planning area and the release of “lower quality ‘grey belt’ land” for development. Such grey-belt development is to be prioritised ahead of schemes on the rest of the green belt. New NPPF ‘grey belt’ planning guidance was recently published to support developers in this endeavour.
If you want more information about these new reforms and/or how they will affect you, please get in touch.
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