Infrastructure in the UK: Can the Planning and Infrastructure Bill help clear the way for speedy infrastructure delivery?

The need for speed 

The government identified as soon as it took office that a historic failure across successive administrations to foster the conditions necessary for the speedy delivery of critical major infrastructure – in particular nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) – has throttled economic growth, undermined energy security and stifled efforts to decarbonise. 

The performance of the NSIP consenting regime under the Planning Act 2008 – introduced as a fast track antidote following the Terminal 5 inquiry – has deteriorated over the past decade. The National Infrastructure Commission has estimated that a decision on a major infrastructure consent currently takes an average of over four years, up from just over two and a half years in 2015. 

While many would agree that there is a pressing need to speed up the consenting process, the system is familiar, predictable, and largely works well. The Bill doesn’t, therefore, tear up the 2008 Act and start again. Instead, it introduces “targeted and impactful interventions” to maximise certainty and speed. The changes aren’t glamorous, but they seek to grease the wheels of the existing consenting regime. 

Keeping national policy statements current 

National policy statements (NPS) are the policy documents which establish the need case and policy basis against which NSIP applications are tested. The Bill establishes a requirement for NPSs to be updated every five years and provides for the creation of a new, streamlined way in which changes may be made outside of that cycle to reflect legislative and policy changes or decisions of the courts. 

Aging policy has been left behind by technological advancement and legislative reform – including the commitment to net zero – resulting in NSIP applications being slowed down during examination as need cases and policy questions were rehashed. Recently, the aged content of some NPSs had formed the basis for legal challenges to the grant of development consent orders. 

Successive governments have neglected NPSs, and so the spotlight on them is to be welcomed. The reforms proposed in the Bill are consistent with the conclusions of the National Infrastructure Commission’s 2023 review of the NSIP regime and the role of NPS, which we were delighted to have been involved in. 

Directing projects out of the 2008 Act 

A new power for the Secretary of State to disapply the requirement for development consent for certain development which otherwise would be an NSIP is another welcome addition, bringing flexibility to an otherwise rigid, threshold-based consenting regime. Some straightforward projects do seem better suited to being consented through alternative routes such as under the 1990 Act. This flexibility is likely to be of interest to developers whose schemes sit on the margins of the NSIP thresholds who take the view that a local consent has cost and timing advantages over the 2008 Act treadmill. 

Limited judicial review reforms 

The Bill gives limited effect to the recommendations of Lord Banner KC’s review of the judicial review process, providing for the removal of the paper permission stage for challenges to NPSs and development consent orders, as well as removing the right to appeal permission decisions which are deemed to be “totally without merit” to the Court of Appeal. 

Whilst efforts to streamline the way in which legal challenges to infrastructure development are dealt with are to be welcomed – and acknowledging the need to balance speedy decision-making with fairness and access to justice – some of the radical, and potentially very effective reforms tabled in the Banner review (such as the “NSIP ticket” authorising a small pool of specialist judges to hear DCO cases) are notable by their absence. 

Putting in place the right regulatory conditions 

The robustness of the UK's energy infrastructure has attracted increasing attention over the last few years, amid grid constraints, supply chain disruptions and ambitious targets for new renewable generation capacity. The Bill seeks to address several drags on the development of new energy infrastructure. 

Arguably the most impactful measures in the Bill to enable the development of new energy infrastructure are those to tackle the grid connection queue. This has ballooned under the current approvals system, with projects totalling over 700GW of power awaiting connection approval as of March 2025, and some generators being offered connection dates after 2030. In an effort to reduce the backlog, the Bill empowers the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority and the Secretary of State to amend relevant industry licences and agreements to improve how new transmission and distribution system connections are approved. This would, for example, allow regulators to allocate connections based on readiness rather than simply on a “first come, first served” basis, to avoid projects without the necessary funding or planning consents taking up spaces in the queue. 

The Bill also seeks to tackle the fact that no new long duration energy storage (LDES) assets have been built in the UK for 40 years. This is particularly problematic given the increase in renewable generation capacity, which necessitates the need for LDES assets to smooth out peaks and troughs in supply. The Bill seeks to encourage investment in LDES assets by mandating the introduction of a “cap and floor” scheme financed by Transmission Network Use of System Charges. Under the scheme LDES operators will receive a guaranteed level of income (the “floor”) referable to their cost of debt, and be required to pay back some of their revenues should their income exceed a certain threshold (the “cap”). 

With an eye to winning the battle for the hearts and minds of consumers, the Bill establishes a framework for introduction (by regulations) of a mandatory, centralised system of bill discounts for those living within a defined proximity of new or significantly upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure. This measure is aligned with the wider (and significantly more controversial) consultations as to zonal electricity pricing, and should ensure that communities hosting transmission infrastructure – who may not otherwise necessarily benefit directly from that infrastructure – see some up-side. 

Will the reforms deliver? 

Can the government succeed where so many before have tried and failed, and make genuine inroads to speed up the consenting and delivery of critical infrastructure projects? While it’s too soon to draw firm conclusions, and some significant proposals in the Bill will require regulations to fill in the details, the early signs are positive. The infrastructure chapters of the Bill contain very few headline-grabbing items, but instead contain some pragmatic proposals to refine a system which, with a little attention (and quite a lot of additional resourcing) is capable of helping to overcome the infrastructure delivery backlog. 

The final article in this series will look at some of the other key measures in the Bill covering topics such as compulsory purchase reform and changes in approach to planning application fees, as well as looking ahead to the next steps for the Bill. 

Authored by David Wood, Mark Nash and Theo Cornish.