The government’s newly proposed Planning & Infrastructure Bill follows on from the ambitions outlined in the NPPF and the government’s Written Ministerial Statement ‘Building the homes we need.’ The aim of the Bill is to turbocharge housing building and infrastructure delivery.
The government’s response to planning reform has been swift. Since July last year we have seen significant planning reform. We’ve had an ambitious pledge to construct 1.5 million homes before the end of the Parliament; a Written Ministerial Statement that set out an ambition to start building and a promise to intervene where local planning authorities do not deliver; an NPPF and uplifted housing targets, which has reset the dial for the preparation of local plans, the release of Green Belt land and a real presumption in favour of sustainable development.
We have the detailed legislative change that is needed to expedite planning decisions on major projects and tackle the long-standing impediments to our planning system. Ultimately this is a drive to promote a renewed era of economic growth, with a boost to the housing market being a key stimulant.
Whatever the reason for this renewed vigour, the planning reform we have seen is exactly what the industry has been asking for, for more than a decade. It is essential to tackle the housing crisis, by building more homes and infrastructure far quicker than we have before.
On this theme, perhaps the most important aspect of the Bill is the requirement for newly established strategic planning authorities (which includes combined authorities, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities) to prepare a Spatial Development Strategy. This move essentially reinstates a form of regional planning, which we haven’t benefited from since the abolition of regional spatial strategies and structure plans. Returning to strategic planning is fundamental to tackling the housing crisis. Over the past 15 years, we’ve learned that meeting the housing needs of local communities is impossible without proper strategic planning. The SDS is a key tool in achieving this goal.
As promised the Bill plans to bolster confidence and clarity in the planning system. A persistent issue facing all local planning authorities (LPAs) is under-funding. The government has highlighted that LPAs are currently burdened by funding deficits estimated at £362 million annually. This financial shortfall results in LPAs often lacking the resources necessary to provide a functional planning service, leading to significant delays to determining applications and providing advice to applicants. This leads to a waning of confidence in the market, with investors often hesitant to commit to brownfield re-development projects, which our often our most sustainable sites in our towns and cities.
The Bill’s solution is to allow LPAs to set their own planning fees. This is something which the Bill promotes as allowing true cost recovery for LPAs, while providing transparency for applicants. In conjunction with this, the Bill proposes to modernise local planning committees through a national delegation scheme. This aims to simplify decision-making processes and improve the efficacy of planning committees across the board. Quite often, planning committees are dealing with planning applications that are compliant with a local plan that really ought to be determined under delegated authority by planning officers.
The Bill proposes amendments to the compulsory purchase order (CPO) process, empowering authorities to acquire land for critical projects more efficiently. Changes in the Bill include electronic notifications and a streamlining of processes, with the aim of expediting land assembly – something that is crucial for housing and infrastructure projects. Whilst undoubtedly the industry will support measures which achieves these objectives, the use of compulsory purchase in practice is minimal and inherently complex. It is, therefore, uncertain whether such reforms would truly be transformational, if their overall use remains limited and whether such reforms will truly have any impact on the appetite of LPAs to utilise these powers.
Another key feature is the introduction of the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), which will enable developers to address environmental obligations more efficiently. This initiative would allow developers to contribute to a communal environmental fund, which finances Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) designed to enhance local ecosystems impacted by development. Better coordination of ecological mitigation measures would likely be welcomed by the industry, if it passed the burden of delivering the mitigation to government and allowed the industry to pay a levy and continue building.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes many measures announced during the King’s Speech and recent government consultations that start to address the housing crisis. The Bill builds upon the ambitious agenda set by the Government’s planning reforms and is crucial for meeting the government’s target of 1.5m new homes before the end of the Parliament.
Two significant challenges remain: ensuring the development industry has the capacity to construct these 1.5 million homes, including sufficient supplies of bricks, materials, and labour; and effectively communicating the need for more homes to local communities, particularly in smaller towns and rural areas. Engaging these communities in the narrative is essential to securing genuine support from all our local planning authorities.
Lawrence Turner is a director of Boyer (part of Leaders Romans Group)
