Update guidance from MHCLG to streamline the Development Consent Order (DCO) regime

MHCLG should issue guidance that:

1. Requires consideration of project importance when deciding on acceptance;
2. Secures the benefits of removing statutory consultation; and
3. Encourages continuous improvement in examination timescales and proportionality.

Statutory guidance should:

1. Expressly confirm that consultation and engagement should not be assessed during the acceptance phase; the scope and approach to consultation should be left to the developer’s discretion. There should be no obligation to provide a draft EIA as part of consultation. Guidance may recognise the benefits of consultation but it should not create an expectation that it must always occur;
2. Establish a strong presumption that pre-examination periods are expected to finish in under four months. For projects designated as critical national priorities, rejection at the acceptance stage should only occur if there is strong evidence that any deficiencies identified at the application submission stage cannot be remedied within that presumptive pre-examination period;
3. Affirm the test on whether an application is accepted for examination should simply be a validation exercise, whereby the Inspectorate should consider whether the required application documents have been submitted. The test on whether those application documents are "satisfactory" must require fundamental issues with the application documents;
4. Establish that where a project is designated as a critical national priority, a decision on whether to refuse an application for development consent at the acceptance stage can only be made by the Secretary of State of the relevant department. Where the Planning Inspectorate suggests a project should be refused, it must communicate the basis of its conclusions to the applicant, providing a reasonable period for the applicant to respond. That information alone should be provided to the relevant Secretary of State who will take a decision on whether to refuse the application;
5. Affirm there must be compelling evidence to re-examine an issue or approach where that particular issue or approach has a precedent in a previous DCO application and that has been approved by the Secretary of State;
6. Establish the examination period should be shorter if a technology has previously been consented unless there are significant issues. The examining authority should seek approval from the relevant Secretary of State where an examination is proposed to be longer than the same technology as compared to the shortest precedent;
7. Provide that an interested party should be liable for costs where it raises the same matter, with no new substance (excluding signposting).

MHCLG should update the Planning Inspectorate’s Framework Document to reflect the above.