Communities Secretary Eric Pickles described the bill as “a ground breaking shift in power to council’s and communities overturning decades of central Government control and starting a new era in people power”. The Localism Bill contains a number of measures which the Government claim will strengthen local democracy including:
- Devolving significant new powers to local councils
- Establishing new rights for local people and communities
- Reforming the planning system
- Creating powerful incentives for economic growth.
Whilst the details of the Bill are yet to be made public, the Government released the new summary document entitled “Decentralisation and the Localism Bill: An Essential Guide on the 13th December 2010. Later in the day, media background notes began to lay more detail on the skeleton on the Government’s reform programme.
Clearly, the Government is attempting to devolve some power from central Government, particularly from the former Regional Development Agencies which the government proposes to abolish, to local council’s and communities. The Bill seeks to address areas of particular concern including the planning system, social housing reform and delivery of infrastructure.
Many of the changes to the planning system have been anticipated, the main change being the removal of Regional Spatial Strategies and their associated housing targets, thereby allowing local authorities to set their own targets having due regard to housing need in their areas and other economic considerations. Little information is available, however, as to how this will be achieved other than a restatement of the Government’s hope that the New Homes Bonus system and the right for local neighbourhood groups to propose their own schemes will deliver much needed housing. The Bill also contains the removal of binding recommendations from independent inspectors following public examination of development plan proposals, thus allowing local councils to accept recommendations they like and ignore those they don’t, perhaps suggesting a return to the 1980’s and 1990’s when a similar regime prevailed. The Bill introduces a new right for communities to produce their own neighbourhood plans, although there is no statutory obligation for this to happen.
The Bill strengthens the requirements for pre-application consultations with local communities for very large developments and requires developers to have to regard to their opinions.
The Bill also confirms the Government’s change of heart over the Community Infrastructure Levy, which is now to be kept albeit with some minor changes to enable a proportion of funds raised to be passed to the neighbourhoods where development is to take place.
Overall, the Bill contained very few, if any, surprises. It was preceded on the 28th October 2010 by a Government White Paper entitled “Local Growth: Realising Every Places Potential”. This document had already set “A new approach to local growth”, with a strong flavour of localism as set out in the Bill. It had already clearly set out a number of key themes and messages including shifting power to local communities and businesses, promoting efficient and dynamic markets and increasing confidence to invest, and focussed investment with the introduction of local enterprise partnerships.
The Paper made it clear that the Government is “…asking local partnerships, led by business, to develop a strategy to growth uses and grows local talent, meets the needs for local people, and helps to contribute to national and economic growth….” although there is no further information concerning the setting up and running of local enterprise partnerships within the information released as part of the Bill. The Paper does, however, clearly envisage that Local Enterprise Partnerships could take on a diverse range of roles, including strategic housing delivery and pool and align funding streams to support this.
Overall, the Bill has probably failed to live up to the excitement that preceded it, with few new indicators as to how the localism approach will work.
Les Durrant, a Chartered Town Planner and Chartered Surveyor and Group Managing Director of Swindon based DPDS Consulting told us “I am not sure if any particular group of people will be excited by the Bill. Whilst it clearly wishes to decentralise some powers to local communities and councils, this is not the Nimby Charter that many expected, particularly when read in conjunction with the White Paper that preceded it.
“It is disappointing that there is no further information as to how localism will manifest itself in terms of the new local enterprise partnerships which the Government expects to be led by business, in spite of no real commitment from Government as to their funding streams. We will have to wait and see how the Government rolls out further and more detailed advice in respect of the planning system, especially as it may relate to the submission and determination of planning applications. However, in the meantime it is difficult to see how the construction industry can deliver more homes and jobs as a result of these changes,” he said.
Continuing, Durrant said “Some of the proposed reforms in respect of social housing may be welcomed, but with a decline in commitment on the part of the Government to fund affordable homes, an increase in supply is only likely to come from an increase in overall private sector activity. The likely response from many councils to the future abolition of regional housing targets will be to try and build fewer homes when the Government’s own demographic research suggests that substantially more will be required.”
Full details of the Localism Bill are due to be available within the next few days.
