Planning Bill

: Amendment No. 167 responds to points made in Committee by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), which were also made by his friends in the Law Society. In particular, the hon. Gentleman identified a loophole in clause 135, whereby a local authority could indefinitely extend the period in which enforcement action may be taken against a promoter. The amendment will allow local authorities to extend the enforcement period by issuing an information notice or seeking an injunction only in the four years following completion of a development or the point at which the breach of any requirements occurred. That changes the current drafting, which removes the four-year time limit for bringing prosecutions in cases in which a local authority has served an information notice under clause 140 every four years, or made an application for an injunction without imposing an extended time limit within which a prosecution must be brought. As members of the Committee will recall, the original drafting allowed the continual submission of information requests to cause the possibility of enforcement to hang over a developer for many years. We are grateful to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for making that clear to us. The amendment will prevent the four-year period from perennially recurring. New clause 27 and the consequential amendments Nos. 168 to 183 cover a different matter relating to who can take enforcement action. Under part 8, any local authority could initiate such action, whether or not it took place in its local area. We believe that it should be for the authority whose area contains the development to decide whether unauthorised development has taken place and whether enforcement action is necessary. The new clause prevents any old authority, whether or not it is at all close to the development in question, from submitting an objection willy-nilly. It also clarifies which is the relevant local planning authority in areas where district and county authorities overlap. County authorities will have responsibility in the case of nationally significant infrastructure projects involving, for example, hazardous waste. Amendment No. 279 makes a minor change to the Housing and Regeneration Bill, clause 13 of which sets out the planning functions that can be conferred on the Homes and Communities Agency. That reflects existing powers in relation to English Partnerships. One of the functions is enforcement, under both the Town and Country Planning Act and part 8 of this Bill. However, as the Housing and Regeneration Bill will receive Royal Assent before this Bill, references to the Planning Act 2008 must be removed and added as a consequential amendment on Royal Assent for the Planning Bill.