From: Centre for Policy Studies
Britain seems to take its terrible record of infrastructure
delivery as an unalterable fact, like the weather. But in a new
report released today, Dr
Samuel Hughes, CPS Head of Housing, argues this is a profoundly
mistaken view. He looks at Britain's history as the best country
in the world at delivering infrastructure, and how we could
become so again.
'Accelerating Infrastructure:
How to get Britain Building More, Faster', proposes a series
of reforms - some of which could be implemented in days - to
transform Britain's ability to build new infrastructure and boost
economic growth.
Large projects in Britain can currently take years to navigate
the planning process and favourable decisions are increasingly
overturned by judicial review, as highlighted by the Prime
Minister earlier this week. In his speech to the International
Investment Summit on Monday, used the example of the East
Anglia 2 wind farm which finally gained planning consent after an
extensive and expensive process, only to be delayed by a further
two years following judicial review.
The paper, developed with the assistance of leading planning
lawyers and with a foreword by barrister Isabella Tafur, puts
forward a range of reforms designed to create a planning system
which gives clarity to applicants about what will be permitted
and clarity to decision-makers about what the law allows them to
do.
Many of the recommendations could be implemented swiftly and
without primary legislation, including:
- Accelerating the planning process by fixing statutory
guidance
- Automatically granting project changes where there is an
environmental benefit. Currently projects are prohibited from
making changes where there are ‘materially new or materially
different environmental effects' - including where the
environmental effects would be better
- Updating National Policy Statements to bring them up to date
with recent legislation
Further recommendations, which would require legislation,
include:
- Empowering government, via the relevant departments, to make
decisive rulings in the national interest
- Reforming the Aarhus Convention, which limit the cost of
bringing wrongful legal challenges. If this is not possible, the
report recommends withdrawing from the convention
- Removing the source of many judicial reviews by reforming
legitimate expectations rules and consultation requirements
