As part of its commitment to “getting Britain building again”, the government is publishing a series of working papers on different aspects of planning reform, designed to inform further policy development in collaboration with the wider sector.

The latest paper invites views on how the government could reform the process for consenting Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP), including water and wastewater treatment projects. It says that without new water supply projects, drought restrictions could, under some scenarios, cost businesses in England and Wales around £1.3 billion per day.

The paper proposes a number of measures that could be taken to streamline the consenting process for national infrastructure and to enable faster decision-making, whilst ensuring the process is fair and certain.

This is not a formal consultation and is instead “intended to inform discussions with the sector, to determine whether and how to take these proposals forward”.

There is no formal deadline, and the government will confirm next steps on these proposals in due course.

Photo credit: Patrick Federi

Government launches Nature Restoration Fund

The Government is to set up a central Nature Restoration Fund into which infrastructure developers, including energy, water, transport or digital infrastructure, will pay to make good any environmental harm they cause. This will be used as a central resource to fund nature recovery projects at scale.

Under current rules, such developers are required to mitigate or compensate for harm on a project-by-project basis, before they are granted planning permission.

The Government said the new system, to be introduced via the Planning and Infrastructure Bill this year, would speed up development while enabling strategic nature schemes to be progressed.

Also published recently, read Water UK’s view on what the water sector needs from the town planning system.