Speeding up development or death to local democracy?

In their efforts to kick start the economy the Government has set out proposals to widen the scope of the planning regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) to some categories of commercial and business development. These NSIPs will be decided not by local councils but by a centralised Planning service run from Whitehall.  Ministers had previously  ruled out retail schemes and major residential proposals as candidates but have now been persuaded that they should be included – at least in the consultation!.

The Government has signalled that it expects the number of business and commercial schemes coming under the Planning Act 2008 regime would be between 10 and 20 a year.

The types of development listed include offices and research and development facilities, manufacturing and processing proposals, warehousing and distribution schemes, conference and exhibition centre and leisure, tourism and sports projects. In each case the threshold proposed is over 40,000 sq m of internal floor space.

In respect of the leisure and sports schemes the area would have to involve over 100 hectares. In the case of new stadia they would need a minimum of 40,000 seats.

Also proposed are mining and quarrying proposals over 100 hectares in extent and all deep-mined coal projects and large-scale onshore oil and gas extraction projects.

Planning Minister Nick Boles said: “It is vital we secure investment in new nationally significant infrastructure and commercial development, and that quicker and better planning decisions are made.

“By streamlining the planning process to make it quicker and easier for these national significant projects to be decided we can ensure sustainable development gets under way without delay.”

Allen Creedy senior partner at Ethical partnership will be making representations to the consultation – he looks forward to the new arrangements particularly for some of our clients who have suffered  from long  drawn out planning applications. He’s also concerned that local democratic views may well be ‘swept under the carpet’when he said “the coalition government needs to ensure that there is a balance between giving local people a meaningful say in decisions and providing developers with quicker and less costly determination process”. he agreed with Nick Boles in saying that “Particularly here  in the North East we cannot afford to lose vital investment in much needed development but it should not be at the cost to local democracy!””

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