An analysis of UK planning regulations warns that the system is strangling big development projects, and that regulations have become “far beyond the sensible comprehension of any single human being”.
The report is authored by Michael Dnes, who was previously a senior official within the Department for Transport and now works for consultancy firm Stonehaven. While it focusses on national infrastructure projects, given motorway service areas can become bogged down in planning for many years, and one Scottish council refused permission for a new petrol station partly on the grounds, contrary to national planning strategies, that it would “increase dependency on car travel”, it is relevant for developers in the forecourt sector.
Titled “Making Britain Build Again” the report argues that while “the business of construction tends to be well-run” in the UK, our planning system is now so vast and unwieldy it is possible that no “comparable example in human history” has required “so many questions needing to be answered by a single team of people”.
Dnes highlights that the UK last built a new water reservoir “when the Soviet Union collapsed”, and that the 50 miles of road due to be constructed as part of the next Road Investment Strategy will cost more in real terms than the “thousand mile” programme overseen by Harold Wilson’s 1960s government.
Rather than the planning system’s dysfunction being down to “a single unwise decision”, it is due to “a slow accumulation” of “individually reasonable tasks” that “add up to an unreasonable total”, he says. These tasks require development projects to “to consider too many issues without accounting for the impact on the overall timescale”.
To take one example previously highlighted by Forecourt Trader, a new motorway services area proposed for the M62 has been in planning for six years, with ground yet to be broken. Countless documents, some running to hundreds of pages, have been required during the planning process. These include reports on air quality, odour and dust; noise and vibration; archaeology and cultural heritage; peatland ecology; fish habitats; badger populations; great crested newts; trees; staff travel, and more.
Dnes’ analysis has a similar focus, highlighting that acquiring planning consent to build a new road requires 186 tasks, many of which “are composed of smaller sub-tasks”, with and usually taking around six years to complete, though he says it is not uncommon for projects to spend 10 years in planning when they are opposed.
A number of steps are required to resolve these issues, Dnes argues. Ministers should be given powers to specify timescales for major projects; structures should be created to consider the impact of developments rather than always requiring bespoke individual applications to analyse these; developers should be able to determine their own planning paths, rather than following prescribed ones; and a specialist tribunal “that favours affected citizens rather than organised campaigns” should be created to hear legal challenges more quickly than traditional courts.
