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Brown announces draft legislative programme

The Prime Minister yesterday announced his draft legislative programme for the next parliamentary session in November. Two of the draft bills will have an impact on the planning system: The Marine and Coastal Access Bill, and the Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill.

The Marine Bill

The Marine Bill aims to improve and simplify arrangements for managing marine development and protecting the marine environment and biodiversity. It will introduce a new marine planning system, with long-term objectives for the marine area around the UK and subsequently the creation of more detailed local marine plans.

It is designed to provide greater confidence and economic benefits for marine developers through simplification of the legislative framework and faster planning decisions with greater transparency and less uncertainty and a reduction in administrative burdens by reducing the number of bodies that business needs to deal with.

The draft Bill’s attempt to decrease bureaucracy is commendable; however, the Bill’s impact on landowners, who are critical in the delivery of economic, social and environmental objectives in the coastal zone, should be clarified.

The Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill

In the Government’s words, the Bill’s purpose is to “create greater opportunities for community and individual empowerment, reform local and regional governance arrangements to promote economic regeneration and continue the Government’s programme of housing reform.”

The main elements of the Bill are:

• Empowering communities and individuals by involving them in the design and delivery of local public services and other measures designed to promote local democracy and larger numbers of active citizens, possibly including giving individuals a right of response from their local authority to local petitions;

• Extending the powers of the new social housing regulator, to apply to local authority landlords (subject to the new regulator being established by the Housing and Regeneration Bill currently being considered by Parliament);

• Implementing recommendations from the review of sub-national economic development and regeneration to streamline regional governance, integrate Regional Economic and Spatial Strategies and make Regional Development Agencies statutory planning bodies;

• Strengthening the role of local authorities in promoting and delivering economic development, including, subject to consultation, implementing a proposed new statutory duty on local authorities to assess local economic conditions and supporting greater collaboration between local authorities in this area, including, subject to consultation, the potential to develop statutory partnerships;

• Implementing recommendations from Lord Sharman’s report to give the Audit Commission a power to appoint an auditor to certain local government entities, and to issue a public interest report about those entities if appropriate;

• Improving the operation of construction contracts.

A £200m fund will be used to buy up unsold, privately owned flats and houses for rent by social tenants or to make them available on a shared ownership basis. A further £100m will be used to offer more shared equity schemes.

However, the Bill has not been welcomed by all; the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) has been highly critical. The CPRE’s Ben Stafford said: “This Bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing – giving local communities more power in some areas and then setting up powerful and unelected bodies to call the shots in others.”

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