techUK news and views
14 Mar 2025

The Government publishes the Planning and Infrastructure Bill

On 11 March, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government tabled the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.  

We are glad to see several of techUK’s recommendations adopted in the new legislation, but questions remain on the routes to implementation and how it will work in practice.   

This Bill is the legislative accompaniment to wider reforms on infrastructure policy, including the reformed National Planning Policy Framework. We responded to the call for views on the reform of the NPPF, which can be found on our website. 

Below is a brief summary of the Bill and techUK’s initial analysis.

The Bill 

The Bill itself is divided into parts focused upon: 

  • Infrastructure 

  • Planning 

  • Development and Nature Recovery 

  • Development Corporations 

  • Compulsory Purchase 

  • Miscellaneous and General Provision 

The most important provisions for techUK members can be found below: 

Changes to planning authority operation: The Bill proposes to give powers to Local Authorities to set their own planning fees, up to the total cost of the planning inquiry. These funds though will in turn be ringfenced and must be reinvested in the planning system. The Bill also looks to mandate training for people sitting on planning committees and prevent the delegation of planning decisions to overly large committees to prevent delays. 

Spatial Development Strategies: These will be developed and managed by Combined Authorities in England or, if none is available, a Unitary Authority which will then be tasked with providing strategic oversight to multiple Local Planning Authorities. The idea is to prevent infrastructure duplication and ensure the most suitable sites in a wider region are used to build infrastructure. Spatial Development Strategies will also be charged with ensuring join-up between development and infrastructure needs. 

National Significant Infrastructure Projects: The Bill aims to streamline the NSIP reforms by simplifying the consultation process and reducing the number of challenges to NSIP possible to be made from three to one. 

Energy connections: the legislation aims to reform the ‘first come, first served’ system currently used for connecting to the Grid with a ‘first ready, first connected’ system. This will aim to prioritise projects ready to go, rather than those which applied first. 

EV charging: The Bill will also remove the need to obtain a license to install EV charging points on roads if the installation if the works can be authorized by permits, such as those with a statutory right to carry out works on the highway. 

Reform of compulsory purchase: The Bill aims to speed up the process for removing ‘hope value’ when land is needed housing or major developments. It also aims to devolve the decision making for doing this, where there are no objections, to ‘inspectors, councils or mayors’.  

Development corporations: these will be strengthened to further the Government’s plans for new towns.  

Nature restoration fund: The Bill will seek to allow developers to pay into a larger fund for nature restoration projects to both allow them to more easily meet their nature restoration goals while increasing the scale of possible environment restoration projects. 

techUK analysis 

techUK is glad to see the Government table this legislation and we are glad to see several techUK recommendations from our previous infrastructure interventions adopted, including the ring-fencing of planning fees for planning purposes and the greater inclusion of mayors in the planning process through the Spatial Development Strategies. 

We are also glad to see the Government attempt to increase the speed of connection to the UK’s energy grid (currently 40% of connection agreements sold have delivery dates of 2030 or beyond), as well as streamline the planning process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, which now include data centres. We are pleased that climate mitigation as well as adaptation is recognised as something ‘of strategic importance’ for spatial development strategies. This means vital works can be done for the purposes of climate action. 

However, the Bill’s reforms will be ineffective unless those charged with administering and using the Bill’s proposed powers have the will to do so. One of the main issues with the UK planning system currently is the inconsistency for business between jurisdictions in England despite each operating under the same rules. We would encourage the Government to use this Bill to further create consistency in the administration of planning cases, planning strategies and planning decisions.   

A notable example of the potential issues with this approach comes from the effects of the Bill upon telecoms infrastructure, which the Bill never specifically mentions. Telecoms infrastructure is an essential underpinning of modern life in the UK, and is as non-negotiable for people and businesses across the country as energy and electricity. While the Spatial Development Strategies will allow for telecoms infrastructure needs to be considered before or alongside development, this relies upon those designing the strategies to decide to include telecoms infrastructure. If the Bill made specific provision for telecoms, including by stating their essential nature and their need to be included in future Spatial Development Strategies, this would help greater certainty in the system and prevent the possibility of telecoms infrastructure being overlooked.   

We would also appreciate clarity on how mayors’ contribution to planning will be factored into planning fees, which are allowed to cover ‘cost’. Will mayors’ planning roles be included in that ‘cost’ total, and will they therefore be able to receive part of planning fees paid as part of the reinvesting of the fees into the planning system. Furthermore, we would welcome clarity on how these Spatial Development Strategies will fit with the Industrial Strategy and the Local Growth Plans mayors have been asked to draw up.  

We would also welcome clarity on how the Bill will prevent an inequality of service operating across the UK, with certain areas of high development potentially able to charge lower fees for each individual application to maintain an adequately staffed department than an area of low development, a concern techUK members had when we responded to the NPPF reforms. The Bill could permit and encourage planning offices to ‘pool’ resources as we suggested in our response to help counteract this.  

techUK looks forward to continuing engagement on this Bill. Those with questions should get in touch with [email protected] and [email protected] 

Teodora Kaneva

Teodora Kaneva

Head of Smart Infrastructure and Systems, techUK

Archie Breare

Archie Breare

Policy Manager - Skills & Digital Economy, techUK

 

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