Planning Bill

I am glad at this late hour to be joining the Committee’s deliberations as we come to the important provisions on the nation’s transport infrastructure. Amendments Nos. 117B, 134A, 168A and 168B would remove highway developments from the scope of the new development consent system and would present an alternative way for highway schemes to receive consents of planning permission from a joint committee of local highways authorities. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, that proposal has been put forward by the Local Government Association. The amendments would oblige the Secretary of State to decide on a case-by-case basis which road schemes he believed should be decided by the IPC. The implication is that other road schemes are not of national significance and so should be decided by alternative means. Amendment No. 168B suggests the model of a joint committee of local highways authorities. The concern raised by these amendments is that there should be a proper measure of devolution in the consideration of road schemes. To meet this concern, my officials have been in contact with the Local Government Association over the past few months and the Government expect to consult soon—I hope later this year—on the possibility of devolving full decision-making powers on local highway schemes to a local level, which will go some way to meeting the concerns of the LGA. We have also listened carefully to LGA concerns on the Bill more generally, hence under the Bill local authorities have a strong role in the IPC process at pre-application stage and special roles at examination stage. Alterations and extensions to the strategic road network are matters of national significance, hence the threshold in Clause 21. Roads for which the Secretary of State is highway authority are strategically vital for national flows of traffic, both passenger and freight. Improvements to this network can have wide-ranging effects, and even changes to small bottlenecks can have great implications for the coherence of the overall network. The noble Lord said that many of these works are very small scale, but their impact on the national network can be significant. For example, the current A1 Peterborough to Blyth improvement scheme includes works to six junctions along a 64-mile stretch of road passing through three county or unitary council areas and five planning authority areas. Each of the individual junction works might be thought of as less than nationally significant, but they are located in three planning authority areas and would have needed separate planning processes if such decision-making had been devolved. Of course the A1 is an important north/south route linking London and the south-east with the midlands, the north and Scotland. This scheme, as a whole, taking all the works together, will deliver benefits both to the local area and much more widely across the country. As such, it is important not to be misled into equating the physical size of a project with its potential impact on the network and its potential national significance. However, even in respect of the strategic road network, we have taken significant steps of devolution. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred to the detrunking exercise which has been taking place over the past decade. The desire to see that local decision-making was stronger in respect of roads that did not have a national network role was a major factor behind the extensive detrunking programme begun in 1998. We are coming to the end of the detrunking programme and some 200 routes have been detrunked already. I have a list which I can circulate to Members of the Committee. There are now only seven routes in the entire country which remain to be detrunked; under the programme, around 30 per cent of the strategic road network has been transferred to local highway authority control. There has been a very significant devolution of decision-making control away from the Secretary of State as a result of this process. That figure of 30 per cent is a powerful testament to our commitment to devolve real control over the roads network to local authorities where there are not genuine strategic interests at stake. Looking to the future, we recognise that patterns of traffic change over time, so the strategic road network will also continue to change. The position, I fully accept, is not static. I would be happy to look at particular routes, or part of routes, where it is felt by the LGA that the national/local balance is not correct. If the noble Lords, Lord Greaves and Lord Dixon-Smith, wish with the LGA to bring such routes to my attention, my officials would be content to look at them. However, our bona fides in this area are very strong, given the effect of the detrunking exercise. Let me deal with the point of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, on trans-European network routes. I understand his point that these are not referred to in the Bill. However, in fact, virtually all roads on the trans-European network are on the strategic road network and so would be within the ambit of the IPC. I am told that the only exception is the A299 to Ramsgate. There is a long explanation of why this is not on the strategic road network, which I can give your Lordships. While the A299 to Ramsgate provides an important link to the port of Ramsgate for the international traffic using it, the volume of such traffic is far less than at Dover and it is not regarded as of strategic importance at the national level. However, I am content to look again at whether it should be classed as part of the strategic road network if the noble Lord wishes me to do so.