Reforms to the nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP) regime have been on the cards for sometime. In its 2020 National Infrastructure Strategy the previous government announced its ambition to cut consenting timescales for some NSIPs by up to 50% from 2023. The National Infrastructure Planning Reform Programme was established in 2021 to undertake "an end-to-end review of the NSIP process and all its interactions".That review culminated at the end of August 2022, when a policy paper emerged from the dying embers of the Johnson administration which promised to amend the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.The policy paper aimed to reduce examination timescales for certain applications for development consent orders (DCOs),enable faster post-consent changes to be made to DCOs,and resolve capacity issues across government agencies providing technical advice on DCO applications.
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