One of the first major announcements following Labour’s landslide election win was focused on speeding up house building and prioritising infrastructure. We caught up with George Simpson, our Utilities and Infrastructure Sector Head, to learn more about his thoughts on their ambitious proposals.
The new Government sees this as the key to boosting productivity and the economy while accelerating the net zero transition, which is logical and compelling.
Most of the headline announcements have focused on housing, energy, transport, and water with their ambition to reach 100% clean energy by 2030 – a promise which has led to eyebrows being raised from many of those involved in the industry.
Plans are already underway for gas and electricity operations to be brought together under the responsibly of the new public National Energy System Operator (NESO).
This will undoubtedly help provide clarity of the bigger picture strategy and speed up decision making but the government sees the planning system as a major hamstring to getting infrastructure delivered.
The industry agrees, with SSE stating that the planning process needs to move at twice the speed it does currently if net zero 2030 is to be achieved.
The government has also updated the National Policy Statements which provide planning guidance for developers of nationally significant energy projects in England which has already come into force. This should make it easier to understand how applications for energy infrastructure will be assessed and the way in which impacts and mitigations will be judged.
In addition, substantial reforms to the planning process by amending the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) are now underway with consultation taking place until September 24th and it is encouraging that building infrastructure to grow the economy has been included, as well as numerous other proposals and ideas, including clarifying the current opaque thresholds for water infrastructure projects for the DCO (Development Consent Orders) regime.
According to the government, emphasis is being placed on rapidly advancing commercial opportunities which will be the foundation of the UK’s future, including data centres, gigafactories and laboratories, alongside improving the provision and modernising key public services infrastructure such as hospitals and criminal justice facilities.
But how realistic is this ambition and does it address the challenge the UK has with the speed of delivery of these projects? Experience highlights that that typically when governments aim to streamline a sector, often things only get more complicated and whilst on the face of widening he availability of DCO powers is helpful, the process itself is far from speedy and the consultation does little to address this.
Our teams at Fisher German see nationally significant projects delivered from end to end in their delivery of land and planning consents and recognise there are a lot of moving parts to consider if Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to achieve her goals.
A huge amount of the current process revolves around the ‘front loading’ work that infrastructure developers must complete under the Planning Act before they can apply for a Development Consent Order.
This involves carefully balancing effective design with environmental and community impact, which can – and usually does – take years. It is difficult to see how this can be avoided without further upsetting those affected by the schemes or having less regard to the increasingly important impact on the environment. In days gone by there was much less emphasis given to these key factors, and infrastructure was delivered far more quickly.
The Birmingham Corporation constructed the 73-mile Elan Valley Aqueduct and the enormous reservoirs that fed into it in 11 years at the turn of the last century, mostly by hand, and whilst regard was had to ‘not disfiguring the countryside’, no doubt the extent of environmental surveys and resulting design changes were limited compared to today’s processes.
Add to this the need to now provide Biodiversity Net Gain on all significant developments, including infrastructure, and the situation becomes further complicated and time-consuming, which raises the stakes for major applications and creates more work to ensure compliance.
Perhaps a more radical approach is on the cards regarding environmental impact. Protection of the environment is essential, however many of these projects themselves exist to benefit the environment and the longer they take, the less benefit they bring as we race to net zero.
Many of the same impacts apply across all projects, for example, nesting birds, newts, and bats, which require extensive surveys to identify, and appropriate mitigation during construction, whatever route is taken.
Maybe a more precautionary approach could be considered where the presence of these species is assumed unless proven otherwise and that mitigation is applied as standard. It could be argued that it is wasteful, but policies such as this will provide the efficiency gains in programme terms that the government is targeting. Or could the Biodiversity Net Gain requirement be reversed for certain priority nationally significant schemes in favour of a separate national biodiversity enhancement project, decoupling and simplifying the process of delivery for the two priorities.
Labour’s plans hint at a potential solution to the community impact challenge by highlighting direct local benefits such as lower energy prices for those affected by energy schemes.
However, money doesn’t buy happiness and unless the benefits are pre-determined by the state, such an approach potentially opens the door to further delays through discussion about the quantum.
Or perhaps Tony Blair’s belief in AI (Artificial Intelligence) providing the answer will enable existing regimes to deliver what is needed? It will no doubt help.
A major constraint the industry highlights regularly is the lack of resources to achieve the growth in infrastructure that is required, which is certainly a valid concern, although a more streamlined and efficient planning process, coupled with advances through AI, will get more done with less, so this is another good argument for change.
Great care will be needed if unintended consequences are to be avoided, not only for the environment and local communities but for the owners and occupiers of the affected land and property, because the consequences of these major schemes can be immeasurable.
As a nation, we have a long history of protecting rights in property, which is ingrained in our culture, and becomes ever more relevant as competition for land continues to increase.
Let’s hope that in the understandable and necessary drive to speed up the process that care is taken not to overlook this very human factor.
Whatever the government has in mind, the world of infrastructure will always remain a rewarding sector to be involved with. Without infrastructure, we are without the arteries, veins and vital organs that make a country united and prosperous and being a part of making that happen in the right way is something very special.
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