George Osborne's budget speech on 16 March 2016 contained several important announcements that could affect planning, building and infrastructure. Here are some of the key points relating to planning.
To begin with, the Budget outlines an ambition to create a "more streamlined planning system", including a move to a "more zonal" planning approach "where local authorities use their local plans to signal their development strategy from the outset and make maximum use of permission in principle, to give early certainty and reduce the number of stages developers must go through to get planning permission". In addition, local planning authorities will be encouraged to deliver Local Plans by 2017.
The Government is clearly keen to continue its commitment to build more houses, announcing further support to areas wanting to develop garden villages and towns. Included in this will be the introduction of legislation that will speed up and simplify the planning process for such developments. In addition, technical and financial support will be offered to those wanting to establish garden villages and towns of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.
In addition to such developments, the Government has announced that it will go further in order to release public sector land for the development of housing, building on the announcement in the Autumn Statement 2015 that such land was to be offered in order to give families a better chance of owning a home. It is hoped that the land released will be enough to allow 160,000 homes to be built.
The Budget also contains measures to increase in spending on flood defence, reform compulsory purchase orders to make the process quicker and fairer, and also to allow more freedom to support the "deployment of mobile infrastructure".
Mr Osborne has also reiterated the Government's intention to devolve powers to certain regions; a plan that will see regionally elected Mayors take more control of issues such as transport, planning and housing. "Mayoral devolution deals" have now been established with several Northern counties, with further agreements being reached in the West of England, East Anglia and Greater Lincolnshire.
Perhaps one of the more significant announcements in the Budget is the investment in transport infrastructure. Road improvement works in the North of England as well as Crossrail 2 in London have been announced. The High Speed 3 railway line has also been announced, which is proposed to run across the Pennines from Manchester to Leeds.
Despite these ambitious infrastructure plans, there is a concern that investment in local planning services needs to be increased in order to deliver them. Phil Williams, President of the Royal Town Planning Institute, said about the Budget, "We welcome in principle new measures to boost housing, build infrastructure and further extend devolution deals. It is absolutely crucial however that we invest in local planning services to help the Government deliver what it has announced today."
Planners, what do you think about the contents of the latest Budget? Let us know by tweeting us @cedrec_news.
