The approval of plans and projects - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 363

22 The approval of plans and projects
22.1 Introduction
The appraisal processes described in the previous chapter provide the bulk of the
technical evidence used in making judgements about the merits of policies or proposals.
This chapter deals with the procedures involved in gaining approval for individual
plans and development applications, and with the additional procedures applicable to
transport projects which require statutory powers and/or central government funding
for their implementation. For promoters of major transport schemes these three
processes - planning permission, statutory powers and funding approval - represent
key external requirements which have to be satisfied for their scheme to be brought
into fruition.
We begin by explaining procedures for the approval of regional strategies and
the adoption of local development plans and the significance of these documents
to highway authorities and other transport promoters (22.2). We then describe the
procedures for determining individual planning applications (22.3) and the holding of
public inquiries (22.4). Public inquiries may be held in connection with development
applications or with the hearing of objections into applications for statutory powers
by transport promoters. In section 22.5 we go on to explain the new arrangements
proposed by the Government for considering infrastructure proposals of national
importance.
We then turn to the procedures surrounding the funding of major schemes. We deal
first with the system of Regional Funding Allocation introduced in the English regions
(22.6) and then the procedures followed by central government in its acceptance
and programming of individual schemes (22.7). It should be noted that these are
administrative procedures, unlike the statutory procedures surrounding development
plans and applications, public inquiries etc. In the case of statutory procedures the rules
to be followed are set in primary legislation or in ministerial regulations made under
it. The way in which they are applied to particular cases is open to legal challenge
and, in exceptional cases, decisions made by central or local governments may be
overturned in the courts. By contrast, subject to an overall 'fiduciary duty' the setting
and application of funding procedures is at a government's discretion.
22.2 Regional Spatial Strategies and Development Plan Documents
The inclusion of individual transport proposals within documents forming part of the
development plan for an area is not a pre-requisite for them gaining planning approval