What Does the Budget 2009 Mean for Planning?
Community Infrastructure Levy
The Government announced in the Budget that the introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy will be delayed until 6 April 2010 instead of being introduced in the autumn of 2009 as originally intended. Whilst this is welcome in the property sector particularly with declining land values, the delay is not for a significant amount of time so local authorities will still have to press on with assessing infrastructure needs in order to prepare CIL policies in their local development documents.
Housing
The Government announced a £600 million fund to stimulate housing development in the short-term and boost capacity in the house building industry. The intention is that this will deliver up to an additional 10,000 new homes in England with £400 million earmarked to unlock currently stalled housing developments by way of supporting viability by expanding provision of HomeBuy Direct and increasing funding for affordable housing. £100 million is intended to go to local authorities as funding to deliver new social housing at higher energy efficiency standards.
Industrial projects and low carbon investment
The budget introduced a new £750 million Strategic Investment Fund to support advanced industrial projects of strategic importance. £250 million of this is to be earmarked for low carbon investment. In addition there will be £500 million of spending as part of an overall £1.4 billion package of targeted support to boost Britain’s low carbon sectors.
This is intended to support investment in energy and resource efficiency and low carbon energy generation by business, the public sector and households over the next two years. It will also be used to support low carbon industries and green manufacturing in the UK.
The budget also announced a £525 million uplift in investment support through the Renewables Obligation for offshore wind projects that will reach financial close in the next two years.
The budget also set the first carbon budget as required by the new Climate Change Act 2008. This set a legally binding 34% reduction in emissions by 2020 which is the most ambitious target yet for UK climate change policy.
Carbon capture and storage
The Government announced the intention to create a mechanism to deliver up to 4 carbon capture and storage demonstration projects including both pre and post combustion coal projects.
Combined heat and power
The Government has stated that it will extend the climate change levy exemption for indirect sales of combined heat and power electricity to 2023, subject to state aid approval. It also intends to commit to continuing other existing levy exemptions for combined heat and power electricity and has confirmed that climate change levy rates will remain at current levels in 2010-11.
Flooding
The Government announced in the budget that £20 million of investment will be brought forward to 2009-10 in order to achieve earlier flood protection for 27,000 homes in the UK given that flooding is one of the major climate change risks facing the UK.
Transport
£700 million of transport spending is to be brought forward from 2010-11 into 2009-10. £400 million of this is to be used by the Highways Agency to accelerate high value schemes on the strategic road network.
Cost savings
The budget announced a £20 million cost saving which would be achieved through a more focused Housing and Planning Delivery Grant. There is concern however that reduced spending could mean less support for planning and a reduction in service which would reduce the ability to deliver development schemes in the future.
This article was first published in the Property Law Journal on16 May 2009.
