Planning and Infrastructure Bill – what NHC members need to know

The government recently published its long-awaited Planning and Infrastructure Bill. This Bill aims to provide a more consistent, streamlined framework for planning decisions, reducing the time taken for decisions on major infrastructure and housing developments.

There are five key objectives the Government intend to achieve through the Bill:

1. Delivering a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure
2. Introducing a more strategic approach to nature recovery, most significantly through the introduction of a Nature Recovery Fund
3. Improving certainty and decision-making in the planning system
4. Unlocking land and securing public value for large scale investment
5. Introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning.

The Bill has several key elements which are relevant to housing providers and local authorities in the North. A full guide to the Bill is available here, but some of the key measures for Northern Housing Consortium members are outlined below.

Objective	Key policy measures	How will it work?
Delivering a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure	Electricity network connections	The system for new energy infrastructure being connected to the national electricity grid will move from ‘first come, first served’ to ensuring that projects are the closest to completion are prioritised or ‘first ready, first connected’.   The current system has been blamed for the delivery of new energy infrastructure being significantly delayed and it is thought this change will accelerate the delivery of clean energy infrastructure, reducing energy bills for households.
Introducing a more strategic approach to nature recovery	Introduction of a new Nature Restoration Fund (NRF)	Developers will be able to pay in to the Nature Restoration Fund, administered by Natural England, that will focus on delivering nature recovery locally and compensates for the environmental impacts of development on specific areas or sites, as an alternative to requiring project-by-project mitigation.   Natural England will bring forward Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) that set out the strategic action to be taken to address the impact of development on protected sites or species. The developer’s contribution to the NRF would then be used to deliver these actions and the developer would no longer be required to carry out their own assessments or deliver interventions for issues addressed by the EDP.
Improving certainty and decision-making in the planning system	Sub-delegation and localisation of planning fees	Local Planning Authorities will be empowered to set planning fees within their areas, while retaining the current fee categories (household, minor and major applications). Income from planning fees should, in the future, cover the full costs of delivering an effective planning service and allow for reinvestment back into planning teams.
	Reforms to planning committee size and delegation	Government intends to introduce a national scheme of delegation which will set out a uniform approach as to which planning applications should be delegated to planning officers, and which should be considered by a planning committee or subcommittee. Government also intend on further regulating the size of planning committees “to support effective debate and avoid sprawling committees”.   In addition, all planning committee members will be required to undertake mandatory training.
Unlocking land and securing public value for large scale investment	Reforming Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO)	Government hopes to accelerate compulsory purchase orders in the future, so they can play a greater part in housing and infrastructure delivery. This will include allowing statutory notices to be delivered electronically, streamlining the future CPO process and extending the ability to remove ‘hope value’ compensation to town/parish and community councils when they are using CPO powers to deliver affordable or social housing.
Introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning	Planning housing growth beyond individual local authorities through Spatial Development Strategies	Combined authorities, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities will be required to develop a Spatial Development Strategy for their areas. New ‘strategic planning boards’ will be able to prepare SDSs on behalf of authorities or groups of authorities.   An individual local authority’s local plan must be “in general conformity” with the SDS under these arrangements.