It's been 18 months since ink was set to paper on the coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, setting out their programme for government. Included in that was how planning and development would be moved forward to help the country build its way out of recession. But are they delivering on their promises? Here Nick Maltby, Partner at top legal law firm Bircham Dyson Bell reviews what has happened to date on planning-related promises.

When David Cameron moved into Number 10, with Nick Clegg leading his Liberal Democrats into seats of power for the first time, there were loudly-voiced doubts on how the new coalition would manage to work together. Almost a year and a half later, it's worth looking back at the promises they made together to see if the partnership has succeeded or failed where our planning regime is concerned.

Taking the planning promises one by one:

We will rapidly abolish Regional Spatial Strategies and return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils, including giving councils new powers to stop 'garden grabbing'.

There was an attempt to speedily abolish Regional Spatial Strategies through a letter from the government chief planner, but this failed when it was found to be unlawful in the courts. A more sedate approach has now been adopted, and this is being progressed though the Localism Bill, expected to be enacted towards the end of this year and to come into force in April 2012.

In the longer term, we will radically reform the planning system to give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live, based on the principles set out in the Conservative Party publication Open Source Planning.

Again, we can see this neighbourhood planning concept being pushed forward in the Localism Bill. However, this has moved on from what was originally mooted in Open Source Planning which talked about plans being designed from the "bottom up" in collaboration with local people. This has since changed as neighbourhood plans must now not conflict with the strategic elements of the local authority plan above it, so it can't be said to be fully "bottom up" any more.

We will abolish the unelected Infrastructure Planning Commission and replace it with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects.

A big tick in the box for this one - the IPC is indeed to be 'abolished', again through the Localism Bill. However, the new system is not really a replacement - it retains the same fast-track process for major infrastructure projects, adding an extra three months to the end for the government to take decisions.

We will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework covering all forms of development and setting out national economic, environmental and social priorities.

This is moving forwards, too: a draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published for consultation earlier this year. But it has generated a deal of controversy, not least around whether it favours economic priorities over the other two stated objectives, among other things. When the revised NPPF is published (the consultation period closed on 17th October), there may well be a Parliamentary debate.

We will maintain the Green Belt, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and other environmental protections, and create a new designation - similar to SSSIs - to protect green areas of particular importance to local communities.

While the NPPF does cover Local Green Space (paragraph 130) and while the existing protections are maintained in principle, critics say green belt protection has effectively been weakened - Community Right to Build Orders override it, for one.

Liberal Democrats have long opposed any new nuclear construction. Conservatives, by contrast, are committed to allowing the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided that they are subject to the normal planning process for major projects (under a new National Planning Statement), and also provided that they receive no public subsidy.

We will implement a process allowing the Liberal Democrats to maintain their opposition to nuclear power while permitting the Government to bring forward the National Planning Statement for ratification by Parliament so that new nuclear construction becomes possible. This process will involve:

  • the Government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it before Parliament;
  • specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesperson will speak against the Planning Statement, but that Liberal Democrat MPs will abstain; and
  • clarity that this will not be regarded as an issue of confidence.

First, we'll ignore that the wrong name was given to the Nuclear Power National Policy Statement. The government did put it before Parliament. I've checked and all Liberal Democrat MPs abstained, except Mike Hancock who managed to vote for and against it, and Bob Russell voted for it. With only 14 votes against, the stability of the government was never in doubt.

We will create a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system.

While this concept is created in the NPPF, arguably it is not properly applied to the different situations where planning applications are decided.

We will seek to ensure a level playing field between small and large retailers by enabling councils to take competition issues into account when drawing up their local plans to shape the direction and type of new retail development.

There is no sign of this one, as far as I can work out, and it is a tricky issue. I fear this may well have been filed in the 'too difficult' box.

In summary, the coalition gets nearly full marks for trying - 16 months in, every measure but one has at least been embarked upon. Execution, however, is always more difficult and the detail has involved watering down some of the concepts. Early next year, it will be interesting to see if all the proposals have been implemented, as target dates approach for both the Localism Bill and the NPPF.

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