EAC session creates more uncertainty around Planning and Infrastructure Bill
The Environmental Audit Committee’s evidence session this week on ‘How will regulators help prevent UK housebuilding from undermining nature goals?’ has created even more uncertainty around the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB).
Giving evidence were Philip Duffy, Chief Executive at Environment Agency, Marian Spain, Chief Executive at Natural England, and Eamonn Boylan, Chief Executive at Homes England.
Marian Spain, when asked about the unchecked powers being given to Natural England (they will be tasked with writing, delivering, monitoring and reporting on Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs)), responded by saying that developers will be able to choose not to pay the levy if they don’t have confidence in the relevant EDP, and that planning authorities can refuse to grant planning permission to developers if they are not convinced that the EDP would work.
Neither of these responses is supported by what the PIB itself actually says. The PIB gives Natural England the power to set mandatory levies that developers cannot avoid. And if planning authorities can refuse planning permission then we have an entirely new level of complexity not mentioned at all in the PIB itself. The Bill currently says that the Housing Secretary of State will sign off each EDP as being ‘likely’ to outweigh the negative impact of development on the environmental feature(s) relevant to that EDP by the end of the EDP (10 years), which is weak in itself, but would likely make planning authorities open to legal challenge should they refuse planning permission.
The comments will add further uncertainty for developers who already face the prospect of added complexity to the planning system introduced by the PIB.
This latest event adds to the growing exasperation that CIEEM and others have with the PIB and how badly Part 3 of the Bill has been drafted. We continue to engage with the parliamentary process as it progresses through the House of Lords, in the hope that we can either get Part 3 of the Bill paused, or get some common sense amendments agreed.