The Planning Bill, which has recently gone through the committee stage in the House of Commons, proposes fundamental changes to the planning system which would see applications for major infrastructure projects such as highways and railways being determined by a new Infrastructure Planning Commission.

Click on the green play icon to hear Roland Bolton, Director of DLP Planning, (0'-1'54") and Mike Pocock, Associate Planning Solicitor at DLA Piper (1'54"-3'32") talk about the new Bill.

The objective is to streamline these decisions and determine them on national policy statements, avoiding the need for long public inquiries.

The Bill also proposes the introduction of a new charge on development known as the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which will run in parallel with the current method of obtaining "planning gain" through the use of section 106 agreements.

CIL will be used to raise money from developers to pay for facilities needed as a consequence of new developments, such as schools, hospitals and hospitals. Changes are also proposed to the development control system which add to recent changes to the planning application system which took effect earlier this year.

Mike Pocock, associate planning solicitor at DLA Piper's Sheffield office, said:

"Despite recent radical reforms to the planning system, development in the UK continues to suffer from unnecessary delays so it is welcome news that the Government is seeking to rectify that.

"The proposed changes contained within the Planning Bill are of particular significance to areas such as Sheffield, where they will hopefully remove hurdles to major infrastructure development taking place which will in turn see greater investment in the city and surrounding areas.

"The one area of concern with the new Infrastructure Planning Commission is that it would take the decision making powers away from the local authority."

Pocock said DLA Piper welcomes that the proposals for Planning Gain Supplement have been dropped and replaced by the Community Infrastructure Levy. But he claims it is unclear how CIL will work in practice given the potential for overlap with section 106.

"The concern must be for developers that they will be 'double charged' or find themselves funding infrastructure, the need for which does not arise from the construction of their development," said Pocock

"The challenge for the Government in progressing its reforms is to develop a planning system which is more efficient and more accountable, enabling decisions to be made by the right people at an early stage.

"However, given that the previous reforms were meant to achieve similar objectives it is difficult to become overexcited about the current proposals being the panacea of the planning system."


External links:

Improvement and Development Agency on section 106 agreements

Parliament: Planning Bill 2007-08