Boost for UK infrastructure with new Bill

Today has seen the publication of new legislation designed to encourage investment in Britain’s infrastructure.

The Infrastructure Bill aims to create stable long-term funding for work on the country’s major road network and to make it easier to sell surplus and redundant public sector land and property, allowing more homes to be built on brownfield sites.

The legislation will also give local people the right to buy a stake in renewable energy projects

Other measures include:

• making a number of technical administrative improvements to the Planning Act 2008 following a review of how the act has operated
• ending unreasonable and excessive delays on projects which already have been granted planning permission by a new “deemed discharge” provision on planning conditions
• creating a centralised Local Land Charges register as part of the modernisation and digitisation of Land Registry, which should improve services and reduce costs to users
• turning the Highways Agency into a government-owned company and making the new arms-length company more accountable to Parliament and to road users