Planning and Infrastructure Bill- What you need to know

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill was introduced into Parliament on 11 March 2025 with a promise to “get Britain building” and “tackle blockers” to the development of new housing and major infrastructure projects.

The Bill will have significant implications for local authorities, developers and communities.

Sharpe Pritchard’s Planning and Infrastructure team will be delving into the measures in the Bill in a series of articles to be published in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, some of the key measures contained in the Bill are summarised below:

Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs)

Giving effect to the proposals contained in the Government’s 2025 working paper which our Infrastructure team wrote about here, the Bill contains significant reforms to the consenting regime for NSIPs aimed at delivering a faster and more certain consenting process for critical infrastructure including:

• A requirement for National Policy Statements (NPSs) to be updated at least every five years, ensuring they reflect legislative changes, government policies, and relevant court decisions.
• Changes to the pre-application and acceptance stages for Development Consent Order (DCO) applications, intended to make consultation requirements more proportionate.
• A new power for the Secretary of State to redirect certain projects to an alternative consenting route, where a different planning process may be more appropriate.
• Reforms to the judicial review process as it relates to NSIPs, including the removal of the paper permission stage for challenges to NPSs and DCOs, and limits on appeals in cases deemed totally without merit.

The Bill also proposes new statutory duties for local authorities to “have regard” to guidance published by the Secretary of State when engaging in the NSIP regime, including when preparing local impact reports and making oral or written representations at DCO Examinations.

Local Planning Authority (LPA) Decision Making

Building on another working paper published in recent months, the Bill contains several measures aimed at ensuring LPAs deliver a more consistent and predictable regime for developers.

These measures include:

• Reforms to the process for setting planning fees, including the power for the Secretary of State to sub-delegate the setting of fees or charges to LPAs.
• The introduction of a mandatory training requirement for members of planning committees.
• The introduction of a national scheme of delegation which would, through regulations to be introduced at a later date, set out which planning functions should be delegated to officers and which should go to a planning committee or subcommittee.

Nature recovery

The Bill contains proposals for a more strategic approach to ecological mitigation through the introduction of a nature restoration levy (the levy) to fund Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs).

Key aspects of the proposed approach include:

• Natural England (or another body designated by regulations) will prepare EDPs, setting out strategic conservation measures to address the environmental impact of development on protected sites or species;

• EDPs will be subject to public consultation and Secretary of State approval, with periodic monitoring and reporting requirements. Once made, they will be subject to a six-week challenge window; and
• Once an EDP is in place, developers would be able to request to pay the levy rather than (say) undertake their own assessments for impacts covered by the EDP.  Further detail will be included in regulations after the Bill is enacted.

The Bill provides the framework for this new system, alongside amendments to existing environmental legislation, including the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (the Act) and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.

Cross boundary strategic planning

Building on the Government’s English Devolution White Paper, the Bill introduces several measures aimed at reforming strategic planning across England.

These include:

• A requirement for combined authorities and county councils, both mayoral and non-mayoral, to produce a Spatial Development Strategy (SDS).
• A duty for upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities to produce an SDS in areas without combined authorities, with the Secretary of State having the power to direct groupings of authorities to deliver the SDS.

As with existing SDSs such as the London Plan, the Bill provides that SDSs will be kept at a strategic level and local plans will need to be in “general conformity” with the SDS.

Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) Reforms

The Bill includes several measures aimed at reforming the compulsory purchase process to enable more effective land assembly for public sector-led development schemes.

These include:

• Allowing statutory notices related to CPOs to be delivered electronically.
• Simplifying the information required in newspaper notices.
• Increasing delegation of decisions to streamline the CPO process.
• Enabling quicker vesting of land and properties.
• Reforming the loss payments regime to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

The Bill also extends powers to remove “hope value” (potential value attributed to land due to the possibility of future planning permissions) in compensation assessments, particularly for CPOs related to affordable housing schemes.

This could facilitate more accurate compensation claims and support public sector initiatives in delivering housing and regeneration projects.

Sharpe Pritchard’s Planning and Parliamentary team monitor new legislation before and during its passage through Parliament, and advise planning authorities and developers on the full range of planning matters.

These include complex large-scale developments and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

Please contact a member of our team if you require advice on the matters raised in this article.

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This article is for general awareness only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. If you would like further advice and assistance in relation to any issue raised in this article, please contact us by telephone or email enquiries@sharpepritchard.co.uk