18.11.2011

Localism Act – the devil will be in the detail

It certainly marks an important step in an agenda that has been a constant in the Conservative party’s transition from opposition to coalition. The Act paves the way for a number of important changes to the planning regime in England and Wales.

It abolishes regional strategies and the Infrastructure Planning Committee (with responsibility residing with elected ministers) and creates new Mayoral Development Corporations in London and requires those few developers not already doing so to carry out pre-application consultation for major development schemes.

It is reassuring that the Bill has been subject to detailed Parliamentary scrutiny in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords since December 2010. As with all legislation, however, the proof will be in the detail – including the secondary legislation required to implement it.

Whether or not it will ultimately deliver on its promise to shift power to communities is another matter. Those who signed up to the ideas behind Caroline Spelman’s letter in advance of the 2010 election were probably not anticipating the same audiences would be up in arms over some of the provisions in the National Planning Policy Framework. The Localism Bill is a counterweight to this. The suspicion is that it may struggle to ultimately deliver on everything, but the process of finding this out will be both interesting and frustrating.