Levelling Up & Regeneration Bill

3 January 2023. This is the name of the Bill going through Parliament which includes the government’s current ideas on planning “reform”.

Back in 2020 the government held a consultation on proposed changes to the Planning system for England and Just Space did briefings for members and consulted members on a draft before responding formally to the government (and to the parliament which conducted its own consultation).

In 2020 the government was proposing a number of big changes – crucially

• calling for all land in England to be allocated by local authorities (LAs) in their Local Plan to one of 3 zones, each of which would be defined by central government. Development proposals which conformed to the specification for that zone would then proceed to planning permission without planning committee or community involvement. 
• calling for community involvement to be strengthened at plan-making stage. But it would cease at the stage of planning permission (except for schemes in the ‘protected’ zone, including conservation areas).
• Section 106 and CIL would be replaced by a new Infrastructure Levy designed to cover infrastructure and affordable housing costs. Within the housing element, the first call on the money would be for “First Homes” which were to be cut-price homes for sale. 

The consultation / white paper produced 4,000 responses and enormous controversies among community groups, local governments, professions, with many attacks on the proposals as a gift to land owners and developers, bad for social housing delivery, bad for democracy, unworkable and so on. We linked many of these responses. including some from Just Space groups.

Jump to 2022 when the government finally sent a draft law (a Bill) to parliament, combining a reduced set of planning changes with its new idea— Levelling Up. The Bill is thus called the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. Just Space was busy with other things at the main consultation stage of the Bill (the Committee Stage) and sent an update to members in November. Zoning had been dropped but the government’s aim of minimising community and council powers on individual projects was to be achieved by establishing National Development Management Policies which would take precedence over any local policies and plans. These policies would be written as regulations by ministers after the new law was in force.

The attached PDF briefing has been prepared for members by Jonathan Moberly, with inputs from many Just Space groups and policy documents. It brings us up to date with the progress of the Bill to the end of 2022. The Bill now passes to the House of Lords on 17 January 2023 and we are hoping to post some further briefing on the potential to influence the Bill during its passage through the Lords.

The briefing contains links to the Bill itself, many supporting documents and some critical comments. In addition, members may want to look at the report on the debate at the London Assembly Planning Committee, kindly prepared for us by Shibo Chen, and at the web site of the London Forum of Civic and Amenity Societies.

Michael Gove has launched the long-awaited consultation on revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework – see here. The consultation runs until the end of February 2023 and we hope to provide some commentary to members.

checked M E July 2025