Infrastructure schemes are a new planning mechanism that will supplement existing arrangements such as planning conditions, deeds and bonding arrangements.
They will help facilitate clarity around infrastructure projects by providing planning practitioners, developers, councils, infrastructure providers and landowners with a new legislative mechanism and suite of financial tools to assess their infrastructure requirements and delivery options.
Infrastructure schemes will further benefit the new planning system by:
- ensuring that new infrastructure is fully scoped, costed, timed and financed before works commence
- enabling infrastructure to be delivered when and where it is needed
- enabling stakeholders to agree on, and commit to, quality standards and areas of responsibility ahead of time
- ensuring that the cost of new infrastructure is spread fairly across all financial beneficiaries
- replacing the need for numerous infrastructure agreements between individual landowners, which can slow the process down
- enabling new growth areas to be unlocked for the benefit of the community
- enabling new infrastructure to be delivered in a more simple, transparent and expedient manner
- enhancing the quality of decision-making around infrastructure via the appointment of an independent, suitably qualified Scheme Coordinator for each new infrastructure scheme.
This new process will be realised through two new types of infrastructure scheme: a Basic Infrastructure Scheme and a General Infrastructure Scheme. Both of these schemes are set out in the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016.
