Environmental assessment system to be replaced amid development drive – Reeves

Environmental assessments for building homes and infrastructure will be replaced with a new system as the Government seeks to cut red tape and speed up planning application approvals.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Environmental Impact Assessments would be replaced by Environmental Outcome Reports as she turns to “avenues that others have shied away from” to “kick-start” the economy.

It comes as Ms Reeves warned MPs – the majority of whom are Labour after the party’s landslide election win last year – the Government would “not tolerate blocking for blocking’s sake”.

The Treasury described the current assessments as “voluminous and costly documents” and said the outcome reports will save developers time and money.

New additions to a list of organisations which developers must consult by law when relevant, such as the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission, are also being halted while a review takes place.

Developers have to consult too many organisations on too wide a range of issues under the statutory consultee system, the Treasury said.

Councils must ask statutory consultees for their views on planning applications relevant to them from a list which includes Historic England, Natural England and some parish-level bodies.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Government wants the default answer to be “yes” for development plans in key areas, such as “high potential locations” near commuter transport hubs.

It is working with Greater Manchester to release land around transport hubs for development, such as around Castleton Station in Rochdale.

In a message to parliamentarians ahead of the speech she is expected to deliver next week, Ms Reeves told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: “This Government was elected on a mandate for change and we will not tolerate blockers who put their own interests above those of the country.

“Of course, there is room for robust debate and challenge and it’s right that developers are required to consult local communities and expert bodies when making planning decisions.

“But we won’t tolerate blocking for blocking’s sake, be that from small pressure groups who have had an oversized say on the future of our economy or in Parliament.”

Ms Reeves said she was also backing a regeneration project around the Old Trafford football stadium in Manchester.

She is expected to use her speech on growth next week to support the proposed third runway at Heathrow Airport, in west London, and to endorse expansion at Gatwick and Luton.

Environmental Impact Assessments have “strayed from their original purpose of supporting decision making and have become voluminous and costly documents that too often support legal challenges rather than the environment”, the Treasury said.

It said Environmental Outcome Reports “will be simpler and much clearer, which will support growth by saving developers’ time and money, whilst still protecting the environment.”

The statutory consultee system “often means too many organisations consulted on too wide a range of issues, clogging up much-needed development”, it said.

A moratorium on any new statutory consultees has been declared while the Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner review the existing arrangements “to make sure they meet this Government’s ambitions for growth”.

The review will take place in the coming weeks.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which aims to remove barriers which prevent construction, and to get projects approved faster, will be introduced to Parliament in spring, Ms Reeves confirmed.

A working paper with further detail on the Bill is being published on Sunday.

The Chancellor said: “I am fighting every single day in our mission to kick-start the economy, deliver on our Plan for Change, and make working people better off. That includes avenues that others have shied away from.

“Too often the answer to new development has been ‘no’. But that is the attitude that has stunted economic growth and left working people worse off. We need to do things differently and that journey began as soon as I started at the Treasury in July. These are our next steps and I can say for certain, there is more to come.”

The Government has pledged to cut red tape and stop “blockers” to its plans to build 1.5 million new homes over five years and secure 150 decisions on major infrastructure projects by the end of the Parliament.

So far, it has taken 13 planning decisions and approved nine nationally significant infrastructure projects including airports, energy farms and housing developments.

Writing in the Daily Mirror, Ms Reeves added: “It is through that investment and through that prosperity that we can lift living standards for mums and dads and families, for people later in life, for young people starting out after college or university.

“The way to lift their living standards is to make sure in the community where they live there are decent jobs paying decent wages, housing that is affordable for them.

“That’s why building 1.5 million homes, tackling the cost of living crisis, is front and centre of what we’re setting out to achieve.”