The approval of plans and projects - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 372

The Secretary of State (DCLG) has an additional power of direction which can
bring individual developments within the development consent regime.
The new single consent will remove the need for planning permission and for
consents under a number of other Acts including the Highways Act 1980 and the
Transport and Works Act 1992. Conversely it will no longer be possible for the
Secretary of State (DfT) to make orders permitting works under these Acts in cases
where they qualify as nationally significant infrastructure.
Members of the IPC will be appointed by the Secretary of State (DCLG).
Applications to the Commission for consent will have to be registered and subject
to pre-application requirements concerning publicity, consultation and community
involvement. On receipt of an application the Commission will appoint a single
Commissioner or a Panel of three or more Commissioners to examine it.
The Commissioner/Panel will make an initial assessment of the issues at stake, hold
a preliminary meeting with interested parties and thereafter decide (and inform them)
how the application is to be examined. It is intended that greater use is made of written
representations than hitherto at public inquiries and restrictions are placed on cross-
examination by interested parties at hearings. The Commission has to work within a
timeframe of six months to examine each application plus a further three months to
take a decision.
The Commission will be responsible for deciding on development consent in
situations where there is a relevant designated national policy statement in force.
(Otherwise it makes recommendations to the Secretary of State who herself makes
the decision.) The Secretary of State may designate an existing policy statement to
perform this role or prepare/update a new statement. Before designation the statement
must be subject to sustainability appraisal and consultation.
In making its decision the Commission must have regard to any relevant national
policy statement. The exact content and degree of specificity embodied in such
statements will therefore have a critical bearing on the treatment of any particular
proposal since the expression of national policy is not itself open to challenge. (The
prospective content of a national policy statement is set out in Box 22.3.)
Nevertheless the Commission is also required to have regard to any other matters
which it considers important and relevant to its decision and may decide not to
determine the application in accordance with the national statement if it is satisfied
that 'the adverse impact of the proposed development would outweigh its benefits'.
The proposed IPC prompts concerns on both technical and political grounds.
Technically it contravenes the notion of a 'plan-led' system for an area. An
application does not need to demonstrate that it is consistent with the spatial strategy
for an area (which is in the nature of an optimising trade-off between a range of
considerations), nor even that it is the best option of its kind; merely that - as a one-
off proposal - it conforms with the national policy statement and does not have a net
negative outcome. In effect the Bill offers scope to pre-empt or bypass the regional
spatial strategy process by the Government declaring in favour of particular types of
development at particular locations without their aggregate effect (in combination
with all others) having been assessed and consulted upon. Even viewed simply in
terms of 'speeding decisions' such attempts at short-cuts are notoriously prone to
subsequent reversals.
Politically the arrangement is open to the objection that it removes accountability
for strategic decision-making from Ministers. Transferring this responsibility to the
Commission will remove the current post-inquiry delays and the opportunity for