The Government published a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) Action Plan in February 2023 and committed to bringing forward reforms “to ensure the existing system can support our future infrastructure needs by making the NSIP consenting process better, faster, greener, fairer and more resilient by 2025”. Subsequent to that the Government consulted in July 2023 on operational NSIP changes to “make the system work more effectively for applicants, local authorities and communities”. The NSIP Action Plan was silent, however, on an important question that was included in the 2020 “ Planning for the Future ” white paper, which was case for allowing new settlements to be brought forward under the NSIP regime. The development industry, so I am led to believe, was supportive of this and, with the ' next generation of new towns ' back on the agenda, this is a question that it might be timely to revisit. The case for doing so is twofold. Firstly, the size of site ...
Hello. My name is Sam, I am a Town Planner and I sometimes write about town planning-related things (in my own time and as an expression of my own opinions). I used to podcast, there is a link to that on this page somewhere, and I circulate a newsletter from time to time. There is a link to that somewhere as well. Should you be so inclined, I am on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford).