Clause 5 - RSS: revision
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
11:15 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
The amendment raises the issue of when the regional planning body should prepare draft revisions. Before I deal with the specific amendment, it may assist the Committee if I explain why the timetable for the preparation of draft revisions to regional spatial strategy needs to be flexible, and why primary legislation is not the best vehicle with which to govern it.
Every region is different and faces different issues of differing complexity. Therefore, no two RSS revisions will be the same. That means that the time that it takes an RPB to consider all the issues properly, and when it will be necessary for them to prepare the draft revision, will vary. The time that RPBs will need to prepare revisions will also depend on the scope of the revision—whether it is a partial or a full review.
No Government have legislated for common fixed timetables for preparing, approving or adopting regional planning guidance or development plans. Fixed timetables are inevitably arbitrary and prevent the Secretary of State and the other parties involved in preparing RSS revisions from following the timetable best suited to the circumstances of the revision.
PPG11, on regional planning, set out an indicative timetable for the preparation of regional planning guidance. Its replacement—draft PPS11, on regional spatial strategies, which, the Committee will be aware, has been published for public consultation, also sets out such a timetable. It recommends that a project plan should be agreed between the Government office and the RPB for preparing the draft regional spatial strategy. We intend that the project plan should be published, and that the Secretary of State will assess the performance of the RPB against that timetable. We expect that it may generally take about two and a half years from the start of the revision process to the publication of the full and final RSS. The opportunity for more frequent reviews of particular parts of the RSS means that this timetable is fully achievable or may even be bettered.
Amendment No. 125 would require a regional planning board to prepare a draft revision of the RSS within five years of the publication of the previous RSS. It is important that RPBs have discretion to decide when best to prepare draft revisions of a regional spatial strategy. An RSS is meant to provide a broad development strategy for the region for at least at least a 15-year period and to address a wide range of issues and policy areas. It is important that it be kept up to date, but that does not suggest a fixed cycle of review.
A five-year review cycle might be appropriate for the transport elements of the RSS, so that they are prepared in time to inform the five-yearly reviews of local transport plans by county councils and unitary authorities under the Transport Act 2000. It is not necessarily appropriate for reviews of the RSS as a whole.
Clause 5(1) sets out a number of trigger points for the preparation of draft revisions. Usually, that will occur when the RPB decides that it is necessary. A key tool in deciding whether a revision is necessary will be the annual monitoring report, which will look at whether the RSS is being implemented in line with its aims. If it is not, we expect the RPB to say whether a revision to the RSS is necessary. However, experience over time may show that it would be sensible for parts of the RSS to be reviewed on a regular basis, and the Secretary of State would have a power to make regulations setting a time for such reviews. We have no plans to exercise that power, but it is sensible to provide for it. Regulations, rather than the Bill, are the appropriate way of providing such flexibility.
As a safeguard against the failure of an RPB to prepare a draft revision when the Secretary of State thinks it necessary, the Secretary of State would have a power to direct that it do so. After all, the RSS is the Secretary of State's policy, so it is right to enable him to ensure that work happens when he thinks sensible. The provisions will make sure that the RSS is revised when appropriate; an amendment setting an arbitrary fixed cycle is therefore unnecessary.