Today's entry marks the passing of the Infrastructure Planning Commission.
Tomorrow is the last day of the existence of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), and so today is its last working day. The IPC came into legal existence on 1 October 2009 and will therefore have lived for a mere 29 months, a victim of a disagreement between the main political parties about how to authorise major infrastructure.
At least the parties agree on the authorisation process, which continues largely unchanged. Indeed, despite the disappearance of the IPC, there should be little effect on project promoters, even those with 'live' applications, although for projects with National Policy Statements in place, the process will take up to three months longer.
By my calculations the statistics for the IPC during its lifetime (unless it manages to have a last-minute surge today) are as follows.
- It has issued 2822 pieces of oral and written advice, including meetings.
- It has learnt of 84 forthcoming projects altogether. Incidentally, having stayed static for four months, this figure has risen by eight in the last three weeks.
- It has issued 49 environmental screening and scoping opinions on those projects.
- It has been notified of pre-application consultation for 26 of them.
- It has received applications for 15 of the projects, accepting 12, rejecting one, with two pending.
- It has held seven preliminary meetings for accepted applications.
- It has fully examined two applications.
- It has reached a decision on one of them, approving it.
Its legacy is that it has overseen the operation of the Planning Act regime for its first - and therefore most difficult - two years. It has established processes, given 29 months' worth of advice, trained up staff and commissioners and hands over most of these individuals to the Planning Inspectorate, together with its caseload, in good shape. The IPC has maintained its values of being independent, impartial and inclusive. It has overseen its own demise with dignity.
There is now an increasingly familiar process in place for authorising the nation's badly-needed major infrastructure projects. From Monday, the Planning Inspectorate will seamlessly take over this caseload, housed as it is in the same building in Bristol. From this foundation now established, further improvements to the regime will be able to be identified and implemented.
So. Farewell then, IPC. 'You should seek your own legal advice'. That was your catchphrase. We couldn't agree more.
The blog is now going to have a week's mourning (annual leave, actually) and will be back on 10 April.
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