11.03.2025
The Government first announced in the King’s Speech in July 2024 that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would be introduced in this parliamentary session. And in January, the Secretary of State for Housing Angela revealed the bill was likely to be tabled “around March”. However, the landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill has now been introduced to Parliament and DHA looks at some of its key planning reform measures.
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The landmark Planning and Infrastructure Bill has been introduced to Parliament.
The government first announced in the King’s Speech in July 2024 that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would be introduced in this parliamentary session. And in January, the Secretary of State for Housing Angela revealed the bill was likely to be tabled “around March”, saying:
“The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will unleash seismic reforms to help builders get shovels in the ground quicker to build more homes, and the vital infrastructure we need to improve transport links and make Britain a clean energy superpower to protect billpayers”
“These reforms are at the heart of our Plan for Change, ensuring we are backing the builders, taking on the blockers, and delivering the homes and infrastructure this country so badly needs”
As anticipated, the Bill has introduced significant measures to speed up planning decisions to boost housebuilding and remove unnecessary blockers and challenges to the delivery of vital developments like roads, railway lines and windfarms. Some of the key measures include:
• Planning Committees: Introduction of a ‘national scheme of delegation’ that will set out which types of applications should be determined by officers and which should go to committee, have controls over the size of planning committees to ensure good debate is encouraged with large and unwieldy committees banned, and mandatory training for planning committee members;
• Planning Fees: Provision for local planning authorities councils to set their own planning fees to “cover their costs”. It is said that “This money will be reinvested back into the system to speed it up”;
• Establishment of a Nature Restoration Fund to ensure builders can meet their environmental obligations faster and at a greater scale by pooling contributions to fund larger environmental intervention;
• Improvements to the Compulsory Purchase Process to enable land to be bought more efficiently;
• Enhanced powers for Development Corporations to make it easier to deliver large-scale development;
• Introduction of Spatial Development Strategies to boost growth by looking across multiple local planning authorities for the most sustainable areas to build and ensuring there is a clear join-up between development needs and infrastructure requirements;
• Overhaul of National Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime including streamlining of consultation requirements and changes to the process by which government decisions on major infrastructure projects can be challenged;
• Clean Energy - Approved clean energy projects that help achieve clean power by 2030, including wind and solar power, will be prioritised for grid connections; and
• Bill Discounts - Residents living 500 metres of new electricity transmission infrastructure will get “up to £2,500 over ten years” off their energy bills.
DHA’s Managing Director, Alex Hicken said of the new measures:
“The new Planning and Infrastructure Bill is crucial tool in helping to get Britain Building again. For too long, delays in the planning system and the politics associated with it, have stifled growth and productivity. The powers vested in the bill will enable the new homes, new business premises and infrastructure so vital to both the UK Economy and communities to be delivered at pace.”
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