10 key dates for your diary in the first half of 2012
Read on for our round-up of the 10 key dates to look out for in the first six months of 2012.
JANUARY
1 January: Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charges come into effect in Shropshire and the London Borough of Redbridge. January could also see an independent examiner deliver his verdict on London mayor Boris Johnson’s plans to raise £300 million towards the Crossrail project through CIL.
20 January: Consultations on the eight strategic environmental assessments into the government’s decision to scrap regional strategies come to an end. The Department for Communities and Local Government says that the revocation of the strategies is subject to the outcome of the assessments and will not be undertaken until the secretary of state and Parliament have had the opportunity to consider the findings of the assessments.
FEBRUARY
In Scotland, amendments to the General Permitted Development Order will come into force in February. The move will mean that householders will be able to undertake a larger range of works to their homes with out the need to seek planning permission.
MARCH
21 March: Chancellor George Osborne will deliver his next key statement, the Budget. Osborne’s two previous statements – the Autumn Statement last month, and the Budget earlier this year – contained proposals to streamline the planning system. Will he announce further steps in March?
31 March: Decentralisation minister Greg Clark has promised to publish the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) “well ahead” of 31 March 2012.
March is also expected to see the government publish a prospectus setting out its plans for a competition to promote locally-planned large-scale developments, according to the housing strategy published in November. And the month should see the coalition’s land auctions pilot programme take a step forward – the housing strategy says that the government expects to “secure heads of terms and fund local authorities” in March 2012.
APRIL
6 April: The Infrastructure Planning Commission and the Planning Inspectorate will merge. At the same time, decision-making powers on nationally significant infrastructure project return to the appropriate secretary of state.
According to the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Structural Reform Plan the government intends that its National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) will come into force in April. The plan also says that, by this time, all secondary legislation needed to implement provisions laid out in the Localism Act will have been passed.
MAY
3 May: Referendums on whether to create elected mayoralties in the 12 largest cities outside of London will go ahead, alongside local elections. In London, Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone will battle it out to become the capital’s next mayor.
JUNE
In Wales, the independent advisory group set up by the Welsh planning minister John Griffiths has been asked to produce its recommendations by summer 2012. The Welsh government says that its recommendations will inform a planning reform white paper to be published in 2013.
A full preview of the year ahead will be published in the next issue of Planning, due out on 13 January 2012.
Follow Jamie on Twitter at @J_J_Carpenter. Picture by Annie Mole (Flickr).
