Infrastructure Planning Blog

Today’s entry takes a look at a new white paper on the water industry, DCO delays, the electricity markets announcement and the grant of planning permission for the Chinese embassy.

Wet wet wet

The Government has published “A New Vision for Water”, which follows the Government’s Cunliffe Review. The headline policy announcement is that there will be a super-water-regulator. You might be wondering water-on-earth this means, and in practice it means melding Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, EA, and Natural England (so far as their water functions are concerned) into a single entity. This new regulator will have “strategic guidance.. expanding it to include long term priorities for the wider water system ahead of price review 2029.”

The white paper talks about moving from a system which currently has more than 20 plans and processes to two “core planning frameworks for water supply and water environment, supported by dedicated regional water planning functions.”

In the section called “Streamlining planning” it explains that these two new plans “will enable cross-sectoral plans, underpinned by consistent assumptions and metrics at national and regional levels, as well as a strengthened approach to options development and cost-benefit analysis”. It talks about “regional plans” which will set out investment priorities. It’ll be interesting to see the details of how this will affect any planning decision-making in the long-term.

One other useful point to note is that the Government is taking forward the idea of “constrained discretion.” This was an idea from the Cunliffe Review, and taken through to the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce Review, which entails “a regulator that is more empowered to regulate on outcomes, rather than process” – i.e., a system that allows regulators to approve matters based on the outcome, rather than a more prescriptive process. This has the potential to be quite significant indeed.

Sector leaders

There have been a few delays to offshore wind Development Consent Orders (DCOs) recently (Dogger Bank South had its decision put back just over four months, Outer Dowsing by a similar period, and North Falls where the decision has been delayed until 28th April 2026). It made us curious to see how different sectors fare in terms of delays.

Angus, co-author of this blog, has been in his mind palace crunching the numbers. The results since the inception of the DCO regime aren’t reflective of the recent delays, and there’s a real spectrum: 100% of the aviation DCOs have been delayed, compared to 50% of the “other pipeline” DCOs, 41% of the offshore wind DCOs, 33% of the harbours DCOs and 7% of the gas fired power station DCOs.

Ah, you might say, but what is the length of the delays by sector? Where a delay occurs, the average delay for offshore wind is 135 days, but in the lead (based on one delayed DCO) is gas storage with 814 days, followed by energy from waste (based on a single decision again) with 484 days. If you’re interested in the full suite of stats, get in touch with the DCO stats guru himself.

Whilst we’re on statistics, there are two new top entrants to the top 10 Relevant Representation leaders. No one has dislodged Brig y Cym (9,859 relevant representations), but 2025/26 has seen a new No.2 (Sea Link, with 6,042) and No. 3 (Lime Down Solar, with 4,958).

Bedlam in Belgium

Just before Christmas, the Government published the “Outcome of the exploratory discussions on the possible participation of the United Kingdom in the European Union’s internal electricity market”. It’s the early announcement of what a future UK-EU electricity markets deal might look like.

One thing that’s particularly relevant in the infrastructure planning context is that “the Electricity Agreement should provide that the United Kingdom ensures, dynamically and at all times, at least the same level of environmental protection in law as set out in the relevant Union rules on the protection of the environment. This should be ensured with respect to each obligation and each right in those Union rules, insofar as they are relevant for the electricity sector.”

For eagle-eyed readers, this is much firmer than the obligation in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (the existing, more general post-Brexit trade agreement between the UK and EU). The latter provides that “A Party shall not weaken or reduce, in a manner affecting trade or investment between the Parties, its environmental levels of protection or its climate level of protection…” The new deal, if implemented as per the outcome document, goes further and could potentially reduce the scope for material variations even when the environmental outcomes are better, so it’s definitely one to keep an eye on. There is a lot more to say about what ‘regressions’ mean in law, but that is for another day.

Royal Mint

Planning was in the news again this week, with the Government granting permission for a new embassy for the People’s Republic of China. There’s a lot to digest in the decision, including how national security, protest activity and diplomatic premises are considered in planning decisions but two side points stood out to me – other than the obvious, of course.

The first is whether planning enforcement can be undertaken in relation to diplomatic premises. The Secretary of State’s decision letter sets out that “[the Secretary of State] does not consider that planning control in respect of the proposed development, or diplomatic premises generally, to be effectively unenforceable”. How would they be enforceable given the laws giving state immunity and privileges to embassies? The Secretary of State says “there are applicable remedies under the Vienna Conventions including declaring the head of the mission or member of the diplomatic staff persona non grata (Article 9) or, in extremis, severing diplomatic relations”. Quite the enforcement tool for planning law!

The second relates to tailpiece provisions in planning conditions. The Secretary of State has cut the wings of any flexibility noting that doing so is “in line with R. (on the application of Midcounties Co-operative Limited) v Wyre Forest DC [2009] EWHC 964 (Admin)”. In that case, a condition which allowed unspecified and uncertain variations was found to be unlawful. A useful reminder, but it’s important not to overstate the fact that variations can, in other cases, be broader.

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