The approval of plans and projects - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 370

This description is not inaccurate but could be misinterpreted - particularly in
the case of trunk road proposals. Here the Inspector is advising the Minister on
the application of his or her policy in a particular case - the policy itself is not under
examination.
National transport policies are not discussed at an inquiry into a particular scheme.
Those policies are a matter for Parliament and the subject of Government White
Papers. The Highways Agency's representatives do not have to answer questions
about the Government's policy or about the methods, design standards, economic
assumptions and forecasts of traffic growth used by the Government. The Highways
Agency can and will explain how its proposals fit in with those policies.
(ibid. para 58)
A more general limitation of inquiries as a form of assessment is that what is being
adjudicated upon is not strictly the soundness of the proposal or the relative merits
of possible alternatives but the validity and significance of the objections which have
been made to it. Whilst the Inspector may intervene to seek 'elucidation' on points
which do not emerge very clearly from the adversarial exchanges there is a limit (in
the interests of fairness between the opposing parties) as to what can be achieved
within the constraints of an inquiry format. This is in marked contrast with the more
pro-active, inquisitorial role which inspectors are encouraged to take in Examinations
in Public.
22.5 The Infrastructure Planning Commission
The appropriateness of the examination procedures surrounding major transport
projects was considered as part of the Transport Study conducted by Sir Rod Eddington
(Eddington 2006b). Unsurprisingly he came to a similar view as Kate Barker in her
review of the planning system, also commissioned by the Treasury and undertaken
concurrently (Barker 2006).
The system has evolved over several decades to the point at which it can impose
unacceptable cost, uncertainty and delay on all participants and the UK more
broadly.
(Eddington 2006a para 1.174)
Eddington highlighted the complexity of the arrangements facing transport
promoters, not merely in gaining planning permission for major projects, but in
the number of additional procedures and consents that might be involved in
particular cases. (A detailed commentary is given in Chapter 5 of Volume 4 of his
Main Report.) Together these create a large measure of unpredictability which he
considered wasteful and economically damaging. However the few examples he
quotes of major schemes taking as long as three years to examine are untypical -
the evidence contained in his report shows that for a cross-section of schemes the
time taken to hold a public inquiry, for the inquiry report to be published and for a
ministerial decision to be made, ranges between eight months and two and a half
years. Interestingly for many of the longer examples the bulk of the time is taken up
in the Civil Service's deliberations after the Inquiry Report has been published and
in agreeing a decision approved by Ministers!