The government has pledged to decide on at least 150 major infrastructure projects and reiterated its promise to deliver 1.5m homes during this parliament.
More gigafactories, solar farms, roads and railway lines are set to be given the go ahead in the next five years, as part of stretching new milestones set out by the government.
Planning decisions for major infrastructure projects are set to rise, with at least 150 applications to be decided as part of the government’s Plan for Change.
The pledge comes as government vows to rebuild Britain, arrest decades of failures and fix the housing crisis to deliver for working people.
The Plan for Change programme asks secretaries of state to turbocharge decisions on major infrastructure projects – almost tripling the 57 decisions made in the previous parliament and more than the total number of decisions made since 2011.
New 10-year strategies for housing and infrastructure will also be published next spring, providing a roadmap for future investment and economic growth, said the government.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said: “We are already taking decisive action by transforming the planning system and bringing forward the biggest boost in social and affordable housing in a generation and alongside this uplift in infrastructure, we will unlock long-term economic prosperity for every part of the country.”
The government said it would simplify the consenting process for major infrastructure projects, providing greater certainty to developers and “turbocharging” economic growth, ensuring projects are not unnecessarily delayed and can be brought forward quicker and provide greater confidence to prospective investors.
The action being taken by government is a response to the challenges faced when delivering major infrastructure in England, with projects slower and more expensive to build here than in other major countries, such as France and Italy. Alongside this, the time it takes to secure planning permission for these major infrastructure projects has almost doubled in the last decade to more than four years.
Government added that the forthcoming Planning and Infrastructure Bill would pave the way for critical infrastructure to be delivered faster and more easily by removing planning red tape, supported by a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.
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