Planning: What was announced in the Queen's Speech and how will it affect developers?

Graham Bloomfield, Sequence Land & Planning Partner:

The Queen’s Speech on 10th May trailed a number of planning reforms under the 'levelling up' agenda. This was swiftly followed by the publication of the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill with some elements, notably the idea of ‘street votes’, generating media attention. The bill is some 338 pages long and, as the name suggests, is not solely focused on planning. However planning reform accounts for a significant proportion of its content.

The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill is not the widespread “radical reform” of the planning system that was proposed under the ‘Planning for the Future’ White Paper in August 2020, as since the backlash to that document, there has been a gradual rowing back from Government. Therefore whilst there is a significant amount of content and some useful tidying up of certain elements, for example the ability to vary planning permissions, there is not the widespread reform that some in the development industry would like to have seen to speed up the plan-making and decision-taking processes.

Of particular interest to our clients in the development industry are proposed reforms to planning obligations with a new Infrastructure Levy (which has survived from the White Paper) to replace CIL and Section 106 Agreements. However like much of the bill, the detail is to follow in subsequent regulations and this is also notable for ‘Environmental Outcome Reports’ proposed to replace current methods of environmental assessment for local plans and individual planning applications.

Finally one of the key elements of the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill is a change and clarification in the relationship between local and national planning policy. In summary, this will see national policy take primacy, when previously it has been the Local Plan that takes precedence in the first instance. This is a slightly more radical reform with the suggestion that there will be national development management policies that should not be repeated or contradicted at the local level. The intention is that this will see a more consistent approach (many planning appeals are focused on the weight to be given to local and national policies, where they differ in approach), and could see a streamlining of Local Plans if they do not have to draft significant numbers of development management policies.

There is an element of 'watch this space' as we will await the detail and further regulations. Unfortunately in the short-term, further planning reform and the uncertainty around it could hinder development as it may see delays to local plans coming forward. Recent research has shown some 70,000 new homes are held-up as a result of local plan delays and this could be exacerbated by further planning reform.