Planning is principally a local activity, but it is a well-established principle that in limited circumstances, and where issues of more than local importance are involved, it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to make planning decisions.
Recent experience, including the response to covid-19, has exposed that the existing route for securing planning permission on Crown land, namely the urgent Crown development route under section 293A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 introduced in 2006, is not fit for purpose, and it is telling that it has never once been used.
I am therefore confirming today that the Government will implement two new routes by which Crown bodies can apply for planning permission for development on Crown land in England, as legislated for through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.
The first route, referred to as the Crown development route, will allow planning applications for Crown developments which are considered of “national importance” to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate directly instead of to local planning authorities.
Allowing such planning applications to be determined in this manner will allow for a more timely and proportionate process. Applications taken through this route will still be determined on the basis of their planning merits, with due consideration of local and national planning policy, and local communities and local planning authorities will still be fully engaged throughout the decision-making process and their views taken into account.
This process will be led by an independent planning inspector, with the inspector usually taking the decision, with provision for the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to make the final decision where deemed appropriate.
The second route, an updated urgent Crown development process, will enable applications for “nationally important” development that is needed “urgently” to be determined rapidly under a simplified procedure. Applications under the urgent route will be submitted to, and dealt with directly by, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government.
The Government believe that it is vital to ensure these routes are in place, and it is our sincere hope that it will remain a matter of cross-party consensus that where circumstances warrant it, decisions on nationally important development by the Crown can and should be made appropriately at the national level.
However, as I argued in opposition during the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, it is imperative that such powers are used only where necessary, and that appropriate safeguards to their use are put in place. Where they are used, I also want to ensure there is transparency not just with those involved, but with Parliament. In implementing these routes, we have been careful to account for both points, which I will address in turn.
The delivery of significant numbers of large-scale housing developments in England is integral to driving economic growth and meeting the Government’s ambitious plan for change milestone of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in this Parliament.
I am today updating the House on the progress that is being made to build out large sites across the country and to take forward the next generation of new towns.
The next generation of new towns
The post-war new towns programme was the most ambitious town-building effort ever undertaken in the UK. It transformed the lives of millions of working people by giving them affordable and well-designed homes in well-planned and beautiful surroundings. This Government will continue to invest in their regeneration, but we also remain committed to bringing forward the next generation of new towns.
In September 2024, we established an independent New Towns Taskforce and tasked the experts on it with identifying and recommending locations for new towns within 12 months. Over the past five months, the taskforce has made significant progress. Its nationwide call for evidence, which invited proposals for sites with the potential to accommodate large-scale new communities of at least 10,000 homes, attracted over 100 submissions from every region in England, demonstrating the enthusiasm that exists across the country to be part of this transformative programme.
Today, the taskforce is publishing an update on its work, setting out the vision and aims of the programme, as well as the unique benefits it would deliver and the lessons learnt from a comprehensive review of the three phases of the post-war new towns programme.
First, these new routes can only be used if the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government considers the proposed development from a Crown body to be of “national importance”. To this end, all applications must be accompanied by a statement setting out why the development is considered to meet that criteria.
The Secretary of State will in general only consider a development to be of national importance if, in her opinion, the development would:
involve the interests of national security or of foreign Governments;
contribute towards the provision of national public services or infrastructure, such as new prisons, defence, or border infrastructure;
support a response to international, national, or regional civil emergencies;
or otherwise have significant economic, social, or environmental effects and strong public interest at a regional or national level.
For urgent Crown development, the Secretary of State must in addition be satisfied that the development subject to the application is genuinely needed as a matter of urgency. The Secretary of State will only consider this to be the case where the applicant can demonstrate the need for an expedited planning process. The applicant will need to demonstrate that the proposed development will need to be made operational to an accelerated timeframe that is unlikely to be feasible using other application routes, including Crown development, and will need evidence of the likely consequences of not securing a decision within the accelerated timeframe.
Secondly, where these routes are used, the Government are committed to ensuring proper transparency at every stage. This will take the form of three distinct steps:
First, where an application is accepted by the Secretary of State, the relevant Members of Parliament will be notified at the same time as the applicant and the relevant local planning authorities. A notification will also be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and will include details as to where the application can be viewed and the process that will follow.
Secondly, at the point of decision, and again at the same time as the applicant and relevant local planning authorities, the relevant Members of Parliament will be notified of either the grant or refusal of planning permission, and this letter will also be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
Thirdly, on an annual basis, I will publish a report of all decisions taken under these routes, including a link to the decision letters, which again will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
I am confident that, taken together, these steps will ensure Members are properly appraised of any applications being considered through these routes that relate to their constituencies, and will provide the House as a whole with the opportunity to consider and scrutinise their general operation. The Government will keep these steps under review as the routes begin to be used.
Finally, with regards to implementation, I have today laid draft regulations which make consequential amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and other primary legislation, as well as to planning application fee regulations, to reflect the two new Crown development routes.
These regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, enabling Parliament to debate them. To support scrutiny ahead of parliamentary debates, I will publish in draft the regulations setting out the procedures for both routes, which will be laid following parliamentary approval of the affirmative regulations. Our aim, subject to parliamentary approval, is to bring both routes into force in April 2025. Further guidance will be published on the operation of the two routes closer to implementation.
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The Government have been clear that we want exemplary development to be the norm not the exception, so that more communities feel the benefits of new development and welcome it. We remain fully committed to creating high-quality, beautiful, and sustainable buildings and places.
We are therefore determined to ensure that the next generation of new towns are well-connected, well-designed, sustainable and attractive places where people want to live and have all the infrastructure, amenities and services necessary to sustain thriving mixed communities, including public transport and services like GP surgeries and schools.
The taskforce is also today sharing its emerging thinking on how best to meet these expectations, setting out what principles should guide the delivery of the kind of new large-scale communities we want to create through the programme. The intention is to begin a national conversation about what constitutes an ideal new town, and a series of engagement events will be held with the residents of existing new towns to secure their insight.
The Government are clear that public investment, leadership, and focus will be needed to kick-start the delivery of the next generation of new towns. However, our clear long-term objective is to ensure that the settlements brought forward under the programme pay for themselves through the value they create. This requires that the price paid for land reflects the costs of quickly and efficiently providing the infrastructure, amenities and affordable housing essential to the creation of high-quality places. We look forward to receiving the taskforce’s recommendations as to how this can be best achieved.
The taskforce will submit its final report to the Deputy Prime Minister and I in the summer, setting out its recommended locations for potential new towns, and its view on how best to fund and deliver them. The Government will then make decisions on the basis of those recommendations and begin the process of initiating the programme.
The spending review will confirm the Government’s plans to provide certainty for this transformative programme, demonstrating our commitment to bringing forward sustainable new communities and unlocking economic growth across the country. In the immediate term, an initial £15 million has been allocated for the next financial year, to enable early scoping work on new sites to begin, ensuring delivery can start as soon as ministerial decisions have been made.
New homes accelerator
Following its launch in July 2024, the new homes accelerator has been working with national and local partners to speed up housing delivery on a series of large sites across the country.
These include seven sites that were previously announced, namely Liverpool central docks, Northstowe, Worcestershire Parkway, Langley Sutton Coldfield, Tendring Colchester Borders garden community, Stretton Hall, and Biggleswade garden community, which together have the potential to deliver more than 28,500 homes.
Through intensive engagement with other Departments and statutory consultees as a convener and broker, the accelerator has also helped progress a number of other sites with the capacity to deliver more than 20,000 homes.
The call for evidence that the accelerator launched last year identified 350 sites, with a combined potential delivery pipeline of approximately 700,000 homes, as requiring some form of support to progress.
Today, the accelerator is announcing that it will focus attention on three new sites: Frome Gateway regeneration area in Bristol, south of Cayton in Scarborough, and Beam Park in London. Together, these have the potential to deliver more than 7,400 homes.
The new homes accelerator is also providing £3 million of grant funding to local authorities for site-specific support. This will be supplemented by the ongoing direct advice provided by its dedicated team of built environment specialists. We are also announcing £1 million of funding to key statutory consultees and £2 million of funding to the Building Safety Regulator to accelerate processing of applications.
Regeneration funding
To further increase the supply of new homes, I am today announcing several new investments. These include confirming £29.6 million from the brownfield infrastructure and land fund to unlock 1,000 new homes in Broadford City Village; announcing £1.5 million to support a joint venture between Manchester city council and private partners to deliver a new district in Manchester Victoria North; and £20 million towards remediating small council-owned brownfield sites, as part of the brownfield land release fund.