The Planning and Infrastructure Bill

What's in the Bill?

Compulsory purchase reform

The compulsory purchase process will be reformed to ensure landowner compensation is not ‘excessive’ and that the process of removing hope value can be sped up where projects are in the public interest. Where there are no objections, inspectors, councils or mayors will be empowered to make decisions instead of the Secretary of State.

Strategic planning

Spatial development strategies will be developed by mayors or local authorities and introduced across England. This system of strategic planning aims to ensure that there is a clear join-up between development needs and infrastructure requirements.

Planning committees

The Bill will introduce a national scheme of delegation to streamline planning decisions. This scheme will determine which applications should be reviewed by officers and which should go to committee. The scheme will also control the size of planning committees to ensure they don’t become unmanageably large and will introduce training for committee members.

Development corporations

The Bill will strengthen development corporations to enable successful large-scale developments, including the government’s new towns.

Nature Restoration Fund

A Nature Restoration Fund will be established to pool contributions and fund larger environmental interventions.