Further written evidence reported to the House
Planning Bill
9:15 am
Hugh Ellis: I think we would take the approach, from the experience we have and also the detailed experience from the late ’60s onwards in this country on major infrastructure, of making an important distinction between changing the structures by which we approve major infrastructure, creating new legislation and managerial reform. It is our firm conclusion from the evidence that we were on the way with the reforms of 2005 to making an effective system. That is to say that the role of the Planning Inspectorate, and the role that the 2005 major infrastructure inquiry rules play, would have avoided many of the difficulties thrown up by cases like terminal 5. But one of the difficulties, I think, is that there is not a clear understanding in this whole debate of where delay comes from in the process. For example, the general mythology around planning is that it is the community—or individual obstructive members of the community—that produces delays in the process. Looking at terminal 5, there is no evidence for that. In fact, more generally in planning, the opportunities for public involvement are very prescriptively defined.
So, what we are really saying is, by all means let us set a framework that delivers decisions in a timely way, but that should not punish those people who find it most difficult to represent their case. We see no evidence, for example, that a right to be heard in inquiries is the critical source of delay, and yet what we have done in the Bill is to say that that general right to be heard, as currently prescribed, has been limited to the point where we think that it is meaningless.