Ms Maria Graham:

The planning and environmental court is an issue we can look at. We are working with the Department of Justice, which is leading on that planning and environmental court. One of the issues will be what cases it will be looking at. We are looking at it from the point of view of the directives. It may be worthwhile looking at the scale of the issue that may go to a planning and environmental court rather than the other courts from an enforcement perspective. One of the things that might be important in a planning and environmental court may be the opportunity, if all the cases are going to the same court, to start to see a consistency and clarity of approach on that. That is not to suggest there is not a consistency of approach but that dedicated court may provide an opportunity, along with reforms in the legislation, to look at this. We are conscious that a functioning planning system has to have enforcement as a key part of it and from working with local authorities they would have the same view. That is particularly true with unauthorised developments. It may be a question of trying to get the scale right. There are different bits of enforcement but it is not tenable that 30,000 people get planning permission for something and that other people carry out unauthorised developments.