- One of Britain’s most pressing problems, as the new government has acknowledged, is how difficult it is to build the infrastructure we need. Infrastructure in Britain is much harder to build than it was historically or than it is today in continental Europe
- Notoriously, the Lower Thames Crossing has spent 15 years in planning, at a cost of £300m, without construction beginning. It is taking longer to approve projects, and even those that are approved are increasingly subject to a range of legal challenges
- In a new paper, Dr Samuel Hughes – co-author of ‘Foundations’ and Head of Housing at the Centre for Policy Studies – suggests a series of specific changes to speed up infrastructure delivery
- The recommendations, developed in conjunction with leading planning lawyers, focus on streamlining the consenting process, empowering governments to make key decisions in the national interest, fixing ambiguous laws, and updating the policy documents governing decisions to make them clearer, more proportionate and more effective
A new report from the Centre for Policy Studies 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.
‘Accelerating Infrastructure: How to get Britain Building More, Faster’ is written by Dr Samuel Hughes, CPS Head of Housing and co-author of the recent ‘Foundations’ essay on why Britain is stagnating.
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, Keir Starmer 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 new report, 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
Report author and CPS Head of Housing Samuel Hughes said:
‘Britain seems to take its terrible record of infrastructure delivery as an unalterable fact, like the weather. This is profoundly mistaken. In our relatively recent history, Britain was the best country in the world at infrastructure delivery and we could be so again.
‘Many of the solutions we outline do not require legislative change and all could be adopted by the current government tomorrow. Giving focus and clarity to the infrastructure planning process won’t fix all our infrastructure problems but it is an essential first step.’
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
- ‘Accelerating Infrastructure’ is available to download under embargo here
- Dr Samuel Hughes is Head of Housing at the Centre for Policy Studies and the co-author of ‘Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated’
- Isabella Tafur, of Francis Taylor Building, is a lawyer with expertise in planning, major infrastructure projects, and public law and has been recognised as one of the top ten ‘sector leading’ barristers in the field of infrastructure by Planning Magazine survey
- For further information and media requests, please contact Emma Revell, External Affairs Director, on 07931 698246 or [email protected] or Josh Coupland, Digital and Communications Manager, on [email protected]
- The Centre for Policy Studies is one of the oldest and most influential think tanks in Westminster. With a focus on taxation, economic growth, business, welfare, education, housing and green growth, its goal is to develop policies that widen enterprise, ownership and opportunity.
Date Added: Friday 18th October 2024
