Planning Bill 2008 vs Reform Bill 1832

It’s the big vote on the Planning Bill today. As seems to be the way of things at the moment, the Government has made last minute changes to placate angry back benchers threatening a bit of laldy, as they say in Scotland.

The most controversial part of the Bill is the creation of an Independent Planning Commission (IPC) to take all the big decisions on major infrastructure projects. Detractors say this is undemocratic. I happen to agree with the CBI’s John Cridland, when he asked the Today Programme this morning: why, if we trust the experts of the MPC to take decisions on interest rates, can’t we trust planning experts to do the equivalent? (But then I do live in a place where they’ll never build a nuclear power station.)

But one other point I think is worth highlighting is one of the concessions made by the Government yesterday:

Wherever a developer applies for a compulsory purchase order, the IPC will have to hold a public hearing into that order where someone affected wants it, and they will have the right to be heard at that hearing.