Continuing Professional Development

The Localism Act • What has changed in planning • When the changes come into force • What they mean for construction

outline applications, leaving matters such as the detailed layout and appearance of a scheme for future consideration. Applicants will retain the right to appeal

to the Planning Inspectorate against councils’ refusal or non-determination of their applications. Equally, no right has been introduced for objectors to a grant of planning permission to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against that permission, a change that had been pursued by lobbyists during the Bill’s passage through Parliament.

Significant provisions Nevertheless, the Act does contain some significant new provisions that affect the construction industry. Some came into force the day Royal Assent was granted, others took effect on 15 January 2012, and others await secondary legislation. Perhaps the most significant provision

The Localism Act seeks to hand planning powers back to councils and local communities. Andrew Wintersgill of David Lock Associates looks at the key issues

Growing planning from the grass roots up

AT NEARLY 500 pages, the Localism Act is a formidable document. The Act received Royal Assent on 15 November 2011 and does not differ fundamentally from the Bill introduced to Parliament a little less than a year before. Its purpose is to decentralise power

from national government and regional bodies to local councils and neighbourhood communities. Empowering local authorities and local people, releasing them from central interference and regulation, has been the hallmark of the coalition government’s Big Society and

localist agenda. In essence, councils and communities are to be freed up and allowed to decide what is best for their local areas and to deliver the measures to achieve those outcomes. For the construction industry, the

question is whether or not the Act will spur an increase in housebuilding, and in development and construction activity more generally. Much remains unchanged: in putting

forward most development proposals, client organisations will still need to apply for planning permission, and can submit

is the removal of the regional tier of the English planning system. This means that the English Regional Spatial Strategies (except the London Plan), including their integral sub-regional strategies (such as the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Strategy), as well as those English county Structure Plan policies that remain extant, will be abolished. (Eric Pickles, the secretary of state

for communities and local government, purported to abolish Regional Spatial Strategies through a ministerial direction in July 2010. CALA Homes successfully challenged the legality of that direction in the courts, with the result that the move was quashed at that time.) The rationale for removing the regional

tier of the planning system is to liberate local councils from having to deliver housing and other development against targets set at regional level, arguing that councils are best placed to determine how many homes and other development to provide in their areas. Under the Act, councils must still make

adequate provision for housing and other development needs in their areas and assess those needs objectively. However, there is a widespread view that the removal of regional targets is likely to lead

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