Infrastructure Policy Watch: UK government reviews road and rail development policy

The UK’s Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps MP, has announced a full review of the National Policy Statement (NPS) for national networks covering major roads and rail.

NPSs outline the UK government’s strategic policy intent for infrastructure development and are used as part of the planning system to determine if a proposed project should be granted development consent. The review aims to bring the national networks NPS in line with commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The secretary of state said: "The current National policy statement (NPS) on national networks, the government’s statement of strategic planning policy for major road and rail schemes, was written in 2014 – before the government’s legal commitment to net zero, the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, the new sixth carbon budget and most directly the new, more ambitious policies outlined in the transport decarbonisation plan."

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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has recently launched an operational review of the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime. This regime, established in 2008, was put in place to bypass local planning approval for projects that had a predominately national rather than a local impact. Over the last few years, the regime has taken a significant battering with ‘development consent’ (the granting of planning approval) for major infrastructure programmes being brought before court due to the corresponding National Policy Statement (used to determine if a project is in line with government ambition) being out of date with latest government policy. The most notable example being a third runway at Heathrow. This highlights that something is wrong with turning strategic policy intent into decisions on granting development consent.

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What ‘on the ground’ infrastructure delivery can expect in the year ahead

Article | July 1, 2021

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