152: first two applications made under the Planning Act 2008

This is entry number 152, first published on 5 August 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 the making of the first applications under the new Planning Act regime.

Although applications for energy and transport projects have had to be made to the new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) since 1 March 2010, until now no applications had in fact been made.

Finally, after just over five months of waiting, the first two applications have been made to the IPC within a day of each other ... and the winner is: the overhead power line proposed by Western Power Distribution near Neath in Wales.  This has pipped the bookies' favourite of the proposed energy from waste plant in Bedfordshire being promoted by Covanta.  The WPD application had the advantage of not needing environmental impact assessment, comprised as it is of a power line on wooden poles.

The only indication so far that the applications have been made is that the flags on the IPC's map of projects changed colour from green to yellow yesterday and today respectively.

This is because publicising the making of the application, and hence the start of the formal objection period, does not happen until the IPC has decided whether to accept the application, which it has 28 days to do.  There is therefore no evidence yet outside the IPC's website that the application has been made.  In the next 4-6 weeks, however, provided that the IPC does accept the applications, we should see the lengthy suite of documents that are required to be submitted with each one.

This indication from the IPC means that any local authority that wishes to complain about - or support - the way that the pre-application consultation was carried out should do so as soon as possible, because once the IPC has decided whether or not to accept the application, it is too late.  It is something of an omission from the Planning Act that there is no clear deadline for local authorities to submit such reports.

The timing of the making of the applications means that on current policy and timetable, the IPC will be allowed to decide them.  This is because they are likely to be decided in about a year's time, which is between the expected date that the six energy National Policy Statements (NPSs) are finalised (spring 2011) and the date that the IPC is expected to be replaced by the Major Infrastructure Planning Unit (April 2012).  During that window, according to a press release last month (here), the IPC will decide applications made to it.  Before and after the window, decisions are to be made by the government.  Before the window, the time allowed will be an additional three months; what happens afterwards depends on the contents of the forthcoming Localism Bill.

The IPC should decide whether to accept each application in at most 28 days' time less the number of days since it received each one (it may not have updated its map immediately, although I think it did in fact do so).  There will be an opportunity for anyone to make representations about each project within a further period that starts when the promoter tells everyone that the application has been accepted and lasts for at least 28 days. Although each promoter can take its time about publicising the acceptance of the application, this should follow on pretty quickly.

Following those deadlines, the IPC must then hold a 'preliminary meeting' for each application and it is at that point that the six-month timetable for examining applications and then three months for deciding them starts (potentially plus a further three months if the IPC is not the decision-maker).

4 August 2010 therefore marks one of the most significant developments in the story of the Planning Act regime so far.

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