Planning Speed Read – 20 February 2025
20th February, 2025
Our regular update for those who work in and alongside the planning sector. We aim to keep you and your teams informed of changes in legislation, provide information on important cases, signpost to relevant guidance, and provide our own insights and experience.
The next generation of new towns
The government has received over 100 applications to build large new settlements from across every region in England. These new towns will be of great importance to the government in realising its ambitious housing targets, with each town having the potential to deliver 10,000 homes or more as well as affordable housing, GP surgeries, schools, and public transport.
In September 2024, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government established the New Towns Taskforce, an independent expert advisory panel created to support the government to deliver the next generation of new towns. The Taskforce is set to deliver a final shortlist of site recommendations this summer. Additionally, in order to allow the government to provide the long-term certainty required by delivery partners over the coming decades (including mitigation of possible constraints), the Taskforce continues to work through priority policy issues, including:
- The approach to affordable housing, along with tenure mix;
- Exploring the powers, structures and financial models needed to achieve delivery (including the impact of upcoming reforms);
- The terms of land acquisition, including contractual arrangements with local leaders and others with a stake in each new town location; and
- How to define the boundaries of new towns and capture land value – and how this can be done at an early stage.
For more information, please click here and here.
UK’s largest lithium extraction facility set for County Durham, to be built on the brownfield site of a former cement works dormant for more than 20 years
Durham County Council have approved plans to build the UK’s largest lithium extraction facility in Weardale, County Durham. The applicant and operator, Weardale Lithium, has said the Lithium extracted at the site could be used to supply electric car manufacturers in the North East whilst contributing to the UK’s shift towards a “carbon zero economy”.
Stewart Dickson, CEO of Weardale Lithium, said: “We’re very pleased to get unanimous support from Durham County Council for our proposals to build the UK’s largest lithium extraction here in County Durham.”
The application (which described a “significant opportunity for the regeneration of the Eastgate site”) details plans for temporary development lasting for 15 years, following which all above-ground structures will be removed. The below-ground structures and pipelines will remain in place following this period but will require fresh consent for further use.
Following three years of work in the area, which included trialling several Direct Lithium Extraction technologies to extract lithium from the geothermal groundwaters, this decision by Durham County Council marks a significant step forward in achieving Weardale Lithium’s ambitions.
To view the planning application and accompanying documents, please click here.
Sanctions for Developers? 1.4 million homes have been left unbuilt by developers since 2007
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has conducted research revealing that over 1.4 million homes that have been secured under planning permissions since 2007 remain unbuilt by developers.
The new report details how, contrary to some beliefs, large-scale planning reforms are not necessarily the most effective way to secure housing delivery. The IPPR found that many of the blocks to housing and infrastructure delivery are not in fact planning related, but include decisions made on the part of the developers (in order to, for example, increase the value of their land before selling on, and land banking in order to slow building rates and maintain high house prices), together with lack of strategic oversight for large scale infrastructure projects.
The IPPR has recommended:
- Exploring new laws to force developers to build within a certain time frame of securing planning permission, or face sanctions;
- Creating a new Cabinet Office team to produce a national spatial strategy to oversee land use;
- Tackling blockers to development at source by ensuring monitoring and enforcement is appropriately resourced.
For more information, please click here.
Please note that this briefing is designed to be informative, not advisory and represents our understanding of English law and practice as at the date indicated. We would always recommend that you should seek specific guidance on any particular legal issue.
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