Planning

The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, which became law last year, aims to simplify and speed up the planning process. Before the election the government had begun to introduce regulations to implement the act. There's a lot for the industry to get to grips with, so here's a handy one-page guide to the changes – and the new acronyms of planning.

Forward planning

- County council structure plans will be abolished and regional assemblies will be responsible for strategic planning. Each assembly will produce a regional spatial strategy (RSS), and these will replace regional planning guidance. The RSS is a statutory document, unlike the old guidance, which means that authorities must abide by the housing numbers in it.

- Local plans and unitary development plans (UDPs) will be abolished. They will be replaced by local development documents (LDD). Each LDD will consist of two key elements setting out core policies and land-use allocations. The core strategy should last for 10 years. As well as identifying sites for schemes, the LDD should contain policies setting out the criteria against which development in other areas will be considered.

- Before preparing its LDD, the authority will have to prepare a statement of community involvement (SCI), showing how it intends to involve local people in the preparation of plans and individual applications. Each SCI will be subject to independent examination by an inspector. The authority will also have to prepare a local development scheme (LDS), outlining its timetable for preparing the LDD.

- Alongside the LDD, the authority may also draw up area action plans focusing on places where it aims to encourage growth and regeneration. And it will also be able to generate supplementary planning documents, containing extra detail on specific policies.

- Like the old local plans and UDPs, all LDDs will have to undergo independent examination. After the public examination, any changes that the planning inspector makes will be binding on the council. The secretary of state retains the right to modify an LDD before it is adopted. Any High Court challenge must be mounted within six weeks of the LDD's adoption.

All of the above documents will together make up the local development framework.

Developers need to be aware that the new emphasis on “front-loading” decisions by seeking consensus at the earliest possible stage means that opportunities to challenge or unpick policies and land use allocations will diminish as the preparation of the plan proceeds.

Development control

- The lifetime of permissions will be reduced. Development will generally have to start within three years of detailed consent being granted. After outline permission, reserved matters will have to be submitted within three years and work on site started within another two years. Authorities can allow applicants longer, but applicants will no longer be able to apply to vary the time limit.

- Business planning zones are being introduced. Within these, applicants will not have to seek planning permission for individual schemes.

- Statutory consultees such as English Heritage and the Environment Agency will be required to respond within 21 days of being notified of an application and receiving all relevant material. They will also be obliged to respond to pre-application consultations.

- Regional planning bodies will for the first time have the right to be consulted on applications that affect more than one council.

- “Twin tracking”, whereby an applicant submits duplicate applications, will be abolished. Local authorities will be allowed to decline any application for a site similar to another that has been refused within the past two years.

- Councils will be able to make local development orders. By creating an LDO, an authority can encourage the kind of development it wants by removing the need for individual planning applications. LDOs will not apply to areas protected by heritage or European environmental designations.

- Applicants will be required to supply design and access statements. These are designed respectively to improve the design quality and ensure accessibility for disabled people.

- Outline planning applications will have to be more detailed than in the past, to include information on the uses, layout and scale of the proposed development.

- The new act enshrines in law recently introduced targets that major applications should be determined by councils 13 weeks after they have been submitted.

- As in forward planning proposals, the arrangements front-load the process, for example through pre-application negotiations to ensure that applications are substantially complete when submitted.

Acronym busting

LDO Local development order: means by which councils can get the kind of development it wants

LDD Local development documents: these set out the council’s 10-year land-use plan

LDS Local development scheme: sets out timetable for preparing the local development plan

RSS Regional spatial strategy: statutory document setting out housing numbers for an area. Councils will have to abide by it

SCI Statement of community involvement: these set out the council’s consultation plans for a particular scheme.