Not out of the woods yet : Spatial planning (de)regulation under the Coalition Government

Abstract

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition agreement presented in 2010 included the announcement of an intention to proceed with a radical reform of the spatial planning system in England, as part of a broad ambition to reduce what various government officials represented as a “burden of bureaucracy” undermining economic growth. Major reforms have indeed been undertaken over the last three years, with the introduction of the Localism Act 2011, a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013. The Government has also put forward proposals for a ‘biodiversity offsetting’ scheme which it argues has the potential to simultaneously promote environmental conservation and boost the economy by speeding up decision-making in the planning system. This paper proposes to examine some of the debates generated by these recent developments in spatial planning policy in England, focusing on questions relating to environmental conservation issues.