134: NEWS - blog exclusive - IPC confirms its replacement in 2011

This is entry number 134, first published on 24 May 2010, of a blog on the implementation of the Planning Act 2008. Click here for a link to the whole blog. If you would like to be notified when the blog is updated, with links sent by email, click here.

Today's entry reports on an announcement by the Infrastructure Planning Commission on its future.

The Chair of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), Sir Mike Pitt, has just released a letter to those with an interest in the new regime setting out the future of the IPC in the light of the change of government, reproduced below.

The letter is issued in response to the many requests the IPC has had for clarification of its future and whether this will affect projects for which applications are expected to be made to it.

Essentially, a 'Devolution and Localism Bill' is to be proposed in tomorrow's Queen's Speech that will include the replacement of the IPC by a Major Infrastructure Unit of the Department for Communities and Local Government alongside the Planning Inspectorate.  The IPC expects this to become law sometime in 2011 (although presumably the parts of the Act that replace the IPC may not come into force immediately thereafter).  This is in line with what the Conservatives had been proposing in their Planning 'Green Paper' and then their manifesto.  The Lib Dems also pledged the demise of the IPC in their manifesto.

Perhaps most importantly there is no suggestion that the process will be changed, just the examiner of applications and the decision-maker (who will be the relevant Secretary/ies of State).  This means that everything we have learnt (and everything that I have blogged) about National Policy Statements, nationally significant infrastructure projects, pre-application consultation and development consent orders is not wasted: these are likely to survive more or less intact.

The 34 expected projects on the IPC website are encouraged to continue as normal: the new government and the IPC aim to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Rest assured that this blog will continue to and beyond this transitionary period.  Stick with us for the thrills and spills of the next year as the regime starts to operate while Parliament debates its replacement.  As if to confirm the 'business as usual' message, a third pre-application consultation notice was published on Friday, and the IPC has recently issued advice on obtaining information from landowners and surveying their land.  More on those soon.

I don't think I'll be renaming the blog as the Devolution and Localism Act 2011 blog, but suggestions for a new name would be welcome!