Govt bolsters planning bill to tackle ‘blockers’
Housing secretary Steve Reed has announced a series of amendments geared towards cutting through red tape and speeding up housing and infrastructure delivery.
The amendments proposed to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill include stopping councils from refusing planning permission while the secretary of state considers whether or not to call in an application, eliminating the risk of planning permission timing out due to legal review, and streamlining Natural England’s role in planning.
“Sluggish planning has real-world consequences,” Reed said. “Every new house blocked deprives a family of a home. Every infrastructure project that gets delayed blocks someone from a much-needed job. This will now end.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves echoed Reed’s words, describing the current planning system as being “gummed up by burdensome bureaucracy”.
“Our pro-growth planning bill shows we are serious about cutting red tape to get Britain building again, backing the builders not the blockers to speed up projects and show investors that we are a country that gets spades in the ground and our economy growing,” she said.
If the amendments survive to Royal Assent, Natural England will be reprieved from having to weigh in on every planning application related to nature. Instead, it will be able to focus its attention on higher-profile projects.
The secretary of state will also be able to issue a holding directive on any application that they might consider calling in to prevent councils from prematurely rejecting a scheme. Currently, these holds can only be put into place if a council is minded to approve an application.
Applications that are subject to legal challenges would also automatically receive extensions.
In support of infrastructure, reservoir projects from non-water sector companies would be considered as nationally significant infrastructure projects. There are also proposals to increase the secretary of state’s powers regarding regulations on windfarms.
Members of the industry have already signalled their approval of the proposed changes. Vicky Evans, UKIMEA cities, planning, and design leader at Arup, described the amendments as “an important step forward in streamlining the planning system”.
However, not everyone was a fan.
Roger Mortlock, chief executive of countryside charity CPRE, described the amendments as “a dangerous erosion of democracy”.
He added: “The housing secretary claims that sluggish planning has ‘real world consequences’. So too would the removal of vital legal safeguards. Blocking judges from halting approvals while legal challenges proceed would allow unlawful projects to cause irreversible damage to communities, wildlife, and the wider environment.
“Giving ministers powers to override local council rejections further strips communities of their voice in decisions that affect their areas, as does restricting access to judicial review.”
The Local Government Association also pushed back against the weakening of council planning powers.
“Councils are central to addressing the housebuilding crisis across the country and are ready to play their part, already approving nine out of ten planning applications which come before them,” the organisation said in a statement.
“Councils know their communities best and should remain at the heart of the planning process. The democratic role of councillors in decision-making is the backbone of the English planning system, and this should not be diminished.”
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will return to the House of Lords on 20 October for the report stage, followed by a third reading soon after.
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CPRE so close to getting that the only thing they conserve is managed decline.
By Anonymous
Democracy is well and truly dead in this country since Labour took office. The next 3 years can’t come quick enough to get Reed and co. booted out.
By Phil Saunders
Will Natural England still be allowed to weigh in on application that are not ‘high profile’?
By Anonymous
Yes. You can see more details regarding this amendment in particular on page 29 of the link to the full amendment proposals in the story.
By Julia Hatmaker
Not sure if Phil Saunders thinks Reform are going to be any more democratic, given that people appear to think they’re the governmen-elect. I can assure you they won’t be, Phil. Although planning is not a democratic process anyway – it is a quasi-judicial one.
By Nostradamus
The problem with…
“Every new house blocked deprives a family of a home. Every infrastructure project that gets delayed blocks someone from a much-needed job.”
… is that in many cases the reason why the new house is blocked is because its acceptability is dependent upon infrastructure which there is no mechanism or finance to deliver. If the government genuinely want to deliver the homes they say they do – which wouldn’t be a bad thing – then they need to find a way of guaranteeing the supporting infrastructure is provided.
Whilst planning isn’t and never should be a public referendum, you can’t blame local councils for following the interests of their residents whose experience over the last 50 years has been that you get the houses but all too often without the critical infrastructure required to support it, resulting (admittedly alongside other factors) in the congestion that also stymies economic growth, in the difficulties faced by many families getting their kids into a local school, in the impossibility of getting a GP appointment etc. etc.
By Anonymous