Growth Bill Delays Light Touch Review Results

Today's entry reports on a delay to the results of the light touch review of Planning Act guidance documentation.

Back in April, the government published draft revised guidance for the Planning Act regime and launched a consultation exercise. I submitted the response of the National Infrastructure Planning Association (NIPA), which can be found here. The Department for Communities and Local Government had planned to issue the final updated guidance earlier this month, and last week as a respondent I received an update from the light touch review team.

It's all hands on deck with the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, whose second reading is tomorrow (and on which I hope to report on Wednesday). This means that the publication of the final guidance to conclude the light touch review has been delayed. The government is aiming to publish two of the six new guidance documents before Christmas - those on pre-application consultation and associated development - and the other four next year - fees, application forms, examination of applications and compulsory acquisition.

In fact the update says that the priority is "both the recently introduced Growth and Infrastructure Bill and changes to expand the 'one stop shop' approach for consents for the major infrastructure regime". This is good news because the current draft of the Bill does not contain any further measures to combine consents to create a true 'one stop shop' for the regime, and is an indication that this area is being worked on just as much as the Bill itself. I speculate, but it may be the case that the Bill will be amended during its passage through parliament to include any one-stop shop measures that require primary legislation.

The measures I have in mind are those in the Planning Act itself that were put there to address the 'democratic deficit' that the independent Infrastructure Planning Commission...