The government’s long-awaited Planning and Infrastructure Bill has now been published. This Bill builds on action the government has already taken to reform Britian’s planning system, including changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, and introducing the new designation of ‘grey belt’ land. Both subjects the UKWA have discussed in our consultation responses.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill will streamline planning consultations and overhaul the process by which decisions on major infrastructure projects can be challenged. Government data shows that 58% of all decisions on major infrastructure were taken to court.
This will create a faster planning process, making it easier to build news roads, railway lines, and new energy infrastructure. New and upgraded transport links will have the benefit for our industry of a more efficient and resilient haulage system, ensuring quicker and more reliable routes for transporting goods to and from warehouses.
Other measures that are in the Bill include moves to streamline the process of installing EV charging infrastructure, a move that will assist our sector’s efforts to transition towards net-zero.
This Bill is part of a wider government pledge: to create the infrastructure needed to support the building of 1.5 million homes during this Parliament. Already higher mandatory housebuilding targets have been introduced for councils to increase the number of homes being built.
The more housing that gets built, the more warehouses that will be needed to serve those households’ needs. As the British Property Federation found, on a national level, there is presently 69 sqft of warehouse floorspace for every home in England.
To therefore achieve 1.5 million homes built, 20.6 million sqft of additional warehouse floorspace is required annually. This does not even take into account any further rise in e-commerce growth, which will necessitate further warehousing and logistics infrastructure to fulfil this demand.
The UKWA will be making the case to government that our industry needs to be included in its planning considerations, to ensure warehousing can support new households’ distribution needs.