Mr. John Hannigan:

I am not aware of the particular elements of the amendment. The difficulty we have is that it is not the only thing that needs to change. A range of elements in the planning process need to change to speed it up. There are suggestions, which I have not seen, to change the judicial review process to bring it back into local authorities to give them greater control over how the planning element might happen. The reality is that all it will do is lengthen the process because it does not take away the judicial review element at the end. It puts in another step. This should make it easier in some respects but, unfortunately, it is likely to make it more complex in the longer term and create additional delays. Simplification is the most important element. There are other ways that simplification could happen. For example, the strategic housing development process was not by any means brilliant but it allowed certainty of timescale. We knew a decision would be made. If strategic housing developments had gone through the right process, there might have been better outcomes. At least we had a clearly defined end-of-process at which point a decision could be made about investment. We do not have this any more. I am not sure from what I have heard so far that the changes being proposed will give this certainty.