Housing and Planning Bill receives Royal Assent

The Housing and Planning Bill received Royal Assent today (12 May), after the House of Lords withdrew their final amendment yesterday.  Both Houses agreed on the text of the Bill which now waits for the final stage of Royal Assent, when the Bill will become The Housing and Planning Act 2016.

The controversial Bill had a rocky passage through the House of Lords with the Government suffering a number of key defeats, perhaps most significantly with amendments being conceded to their flagship Starter Homes scheme.   Despite these setbacks, the Act includes some fairly radical provisions which will materially change the planning system such as the introduction of ‘permission in principle’ for housing-led developments; setting timetables for neighbourhood plan decisions and allowing intervention by the Sectary of State to ensure Local Plans are in place by a set deadline.  The Act also allows regulations to be introduced requiring Council’s to keep registers of certain types of land and to start pilot schemes testing the use of alternative providers to process planning applications.

The Government’s hope is that these measures in the new Housing and Planning Act 2016 will speed up the planning regime and help deliver more housing.  Whether or not the Act will assist in delivering the promised one million new homes by 2020 remains to be seen, but the Act certainly has immediate implications for the way in which the planning system operates.

If you have any queries regarding the Housing and Planning Act, please feel free to contact one of the Firstplan team.