Where are we now?

The Bill is progressing through Parliament and has completed its Commons second reading and Committee stage, with the government publishing changes in May and June.

More changes can be expected following the third reading, which will take place in the House of Lords. With a following wind, Royal Assent may happen this year once the Lords have considered the government's final amendments.

What is being proposed? 

Looking solely at the planning and nature recovery elements, it is worth briefly summarising some of the key elements of the Bill:

• National Policy Statements to be revised every five years alongside a simpler consenting process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) applications. Fewer opportunities for vexatious judicial reviews.
• Planning fees – local planning authorities (LPAs) will be allowed to set local fee rates based on cost recovery and also to ring-fence the resultant additional proceeds.
• National scheme of delegation (NSD) – this will be adopted via secondary legislation, and will require more planning applications to be determined by LPA planning officers. Plus mandatory training for LPA members sitting on a planning committee.
• ‘Medium-scale’ schemes are to be introduced as a planning concept, with lesser consultation and administrative requirements - albeit the size threshold is yet to be determined.
• National Development Management Policies (NDMPs) will be introduced, with the detailed drafting and subsequent adoption to be achieved via future secondary legislation.
• Spatial Development Strategies must be prepared, providing cross-boundary planning guidance aimed at aligning strategic decisions on new homes, jobs and infrastructure. The Secretary of State will have intervention powers to drive progress and ensure compliance with national policy.
• Natural England is to be given powers to prepare local Environmental Development Plans (EDPs) and to set a Nature Conservation Levy (NCL) Once both the EDP and the NCL are in place, developers can pay the levy, where appropriate, as a means to avoid on-site environmental impact mitigation.
• Environmental assessment – this process is to be changed to a simpler approach based on how a scheme contributes, or not, to defined national and local environmental outcome targets.
• Hope Value, as it relates to planning and compulsory purchase, is to be removed to allow the state to purchase land at below market value, in order to deliver homes and infrastructure.

Debates and amendments

A number of amendments arose from the various parliamentary debates, including:

• clarifications making clear that payments to the NCL must lead to demonstrable environmental improvements
• greater powers to Natural England to ensure it is able to carry out its role on planning, levy rate setting and enforcement
• new call-in powers aimed at preventing LPAs from refusing policy-compliant planning applications
• a reduced role for Natural England on minor applications, to ensure it focuses on major schemes, preparing Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and setting the Nature Conservation Levy
• measures to stop planning applications subject to judicial review from being timed-out

Implications for practitioners

Royal Assent will reboot and refocus the planning system on the delivery of homes and infrastructure. But there remains much work to do via secondary legislation and numerous questions remain unanswered. For example:

1. Does Natural England have the resources to play its multifunctional role in the system of preparing EDPs, setting a realistic high impact levy rate, and then monitoring and enforcing outcomes?

2. Will the NDMPs be bold enough to drive change for SMEs or will they simply replicate National Planning Policy Framework policy?

3. Will the NSD be radical enough to significantly reduce timescales and risks, particularly for SMEs?

4. How will the threshold for ‘medium-scale’ schemes be set to ensure maximum positive effects for SMEs?

5.  How will the changes to Hope Value play out in practice? Do LPAs have the resource to undertake highly complex and sensitive Compulsory Purchase Orderss? Will buying private housing land at agricultural land value, against the landowner’s wishes, survive legal scrutiny?

6. How will the new Spatial Development Strategies align new homes, jobs and infrastructure if they cannot make allocations and are not set over relevant functional economic geography?

7. How will timescales for preparing Spatial Development Strategies align with local government reorganisation and 30-month local plan timescales? What comes first and what are the risks of delays? 

And, above all else, how can different sectors work together to maximise the hugely positive opportunities created by the Bill? 

Further information

Contact Philip Barnes