Weekly planning news

Planning Portal react to King's Speech

We spoke to James Garrett, our Policy and Strategy Advisor, as well as TerraQuest Land Referencing Consultant Peter King and expert TerraQuest planner Eloun Smith, to gather some thoughts on coming changes to the built environment, following the King’s Speech yesterday. 

Read our key takeaways below: 

Simplified National Infrastructure consenting 

Simplifying the consenting process for major infrastructure projects has significant implications. While it’s a good step in theory, allowing key infrastructure to bypass some unnecessary regulatory hurdles, it’s crucial that applications are still thoroughly scrutinised. This step is necessary to reduce timescales for such projects, but more information is needed about this ‘simplification’ to reach a strong conclusion either way.   

Peter King stresses that there should still remain a ‘fair and honest option for the landowners to have their opinions heard’ and for developers to ‘assess’ all options. 

Given that reformed compulsory purchase will make land more easily available for such projects, Peter emphasised, ‘It is key that ahead of using CPO powers, negotiations should be held with landowners to try and gain the land by agreement before the need for CPO powers to be used.’ 

What is increased capacity at local planning authorities likely to mean? 

Whilst it could simply mean an increase in staff, this is likely to allude to optimisation in terms of better availability of data to facilitate decision making, stronger presumptions in favour of development, realistic timeframes for decision making. 

It could also mean we see the continuation or expansion of the Planning Skills Delivery fund, as Eloun Smith told us - ‘I would expect ‘increasing capacity’ would include more funding to support recruitment of planning officers. The previous Conservative Government created the Planning Skills Delivery Fund, pledging £24m over two years to get planning officers into local government with the express purpose of increasing capacity for local government. As to whether this would be a continuation of the existing scheme, it remains unclear.’ 

Is planning reform enough to address skills shortages and other issues which might be hampering development? 

James Garrett says ‘The skills gap exists across the end-to-end process of planning and building, and needs to be addressed in all areas. This is not a short-term process, and one that will have to live across multiple electoral cycles to succeed’. 

Can the planning industry expect new tech, such as AI? 

We require standardised structures for rules and requirements, with better access to relevant data sets. Until these two are addressed and optimised, it’s hard to see how more advanced tech will be implemented coherently.  

We can see how Artificial Intelligence could play a part in administrative application elements such as assessment, identifying consultees and processing responses, but feel that humans will still need to be part of the loop, particularly in decision making. 

James Garret told us ‘A ‘black box’ that data goes into and a decision comes out of is likely to be broadly rejected by all parties.’ 

Similarly, Eloun Smith stressed ‘The issues within planning will not be solved by technology. The reliance on technology often displaces more practical solutions such as increasing council funding – it is a flashy solution that often relies on us being bailed out by technology that does not even exist yet.’ 

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You can hear further commentary via an exclusive Planning Portal audiogram, provided by James Garret, at the end of this week. 

Land ownership questions mean slower grid connection times

Efforts to speed up the UK’s grid connection times risk progressing more slowly than necessary because of delays caused by uncertainty over the status and ownership of land.

Several factors, including a substantial uptick in the take-up of electric vehicles over the coming years are expected to put significant pressures on connections, both for at-home charging and out-of-home charging stations. At the same time, an increasing number of facilities with substantial power demands, such as data centres and battery storage facilities, are set to come online in the coming years.   

As a result, many new connections are needed across the country, along with many hundreds of miles of power lines and associated infrastructure. This infrastructure must pass over and under numerous plots of land, owned by a similarly large number of businesses and individuals and with various usage restrictions, putting significant pressure on Designated Network Operators (DNOs) to ensure they have detailed and up-to-date information about land ownerships and rights 

Tony Pratt, Head of Technical Services at TerraQuest, said: “Both long-distance high voltage power lines and short-distance infrastructure for new grid connections require the acquisition of, and new rights to be established, over land and, frequently, the use of Compulsory Acquisition powers. Obtaining these rights means having a comprehensive and up-to-date record of land ownership and any associated restrictions.” 

He said that while HM Land Registry in principle holds a full record of land ownership in the UK, a single check at the start of a project is unlikely to be sufficient in the context of complex multi-year projects, where land ownership can change frequently and even be ambiguous or disputed.  

“Land referencing needs to be an active and ongoing process, involving detailed research into the ownership and restrictions on the use of all land involved in a project,” added Tony.  

“Without comprehensive and up-to-date intelligence about the status of land potentially affected by a project, there is a real risk of unnecessary delays in acquiring or gaining rights over land. When multiplied by potentially many hundreds of plots of land, the prospects of encountering costly issues rises substantially. This is a significant area of risk, given the urgent need to increase the speed of delivery of new grid connections. 

“A comprehensive and detailed approach to land referencing, undertaken by specialist researchers is vital in ensuring upgraded grid infrastructure and connections are delivered as soon as possible.” 

Controversial solar farm project approved by Energy Secretary 

Energy Secretary Ed Milliband has approved three solar developments, including a scheme which planning inspectors originally recommended for refusal, Planning Resource has reported. 

PINS originally found that the project on the Suffolk and Cambridgeshire border was harmful, on account of damage to the appearance of the area ‘firmly of the view that there would be substantial disbenefits resulting from the proposed development, principally in terms of the harm that would be caused to the setting of the Chippenham Park [Registered Park and Garden (RPG)], the extensive adverse impact on the landscape setting of and views from the Limekilns, a non-designated but an especially valued landscape’. 

In his decision letter approving the project, the Secretary of State concluded that these harms were ‘moderate negative weighting in the planning balance’. 

In other energy news, Government have pulled their defence of a coalmine project in Cumbria, following the landmark Supreme Court ruling last month¹ which found the original application should have accounted for long-term emissions. 

You can find further details by visiting Local Gov.² 

1. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/services/weekly-planning-news/planning-news-10-july-2024#supreme-court-find-environmental-impact-assessment-on-oil-project-should-have-considered-long-term-emissions
2. https://www.localgov.co.uk/Government-pulls-defence-of-Cumbria-coal-mine/60766