Summary
3.The Act is in 8 Parts and contains 7 Schedules.
4.Part 1 and Schedules 1 to 3 make provision for the appointment of “strategic highways companies” to manage strategic roads in England in place of the Highways Agency.
5.Part 2 makes provision for a cycling and walking investment strategy. Part 3 relates to the powers of the British Transport Police Force.
6.Part 4 makes provision for the environmental control of animal and plant species through species control agreements and orders.
7.Part 5 makes provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects, deemed discharge of planning conditions and about the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and other bodies, including the Greater London Authority (GLA). Part 5 together with Schedule 4 amends the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to enable the Mayor of London to grant planning permission by Mayoral development order. Part 5 together with Schedule 5 provides for the Land Registry to assume responsibility for the registration of local land charges and to have wider powers to provide information, document and register services relating to land and other property. The Part also allows for provision to be made in building regulations for off-site carbon abatement measures.
8.Part 6 and Schedule 6 make provision about a community electricity right which, if exercised, will give individuals resident in a community, or groups connected with a community, the right to buy a stake in a renewable electricity development in or adjacent to the community. Part 6 together with Schedule 7 makes provision for maximising the recovery of UK petroleum. Part 6 makes provision about the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, petroleum and geothermal energy in deep-level land and Renewable Heat Incentives. It also amends the Electricity Act 1989 with provisions which, if exercised, will enable customers of independent connection providers to recover a proportion of the cost of a new connection from customers who subsequently connect to the same infrastructure.
9.Part 7 makes provision to amend the Public Bodies Act 2011 to enable the Government, should it choose to do so, to abolish the Board of Public Works Loan Commissioners and transfer its functions to another body through the process set out in the 2011 Act. Part 8 contains some general provisions that apply to the Act as a whole.