Commentary on Sections Part 3 – Repeals of Welsh Legislation Part 4 – Local plans, structure plans and unitary development plans
131.The planning system in Wales is ‘development plan-led’, which means development plans are the starting point when making planning decisions. Once a development plan has been adopted, decisions on planning applications are made in accordance with the development plan, unless other material considerations indicate otherwise. The development plan system in Wales is made up of three tiers with plans prepared at national, regional and local levels.
132.The primary legislation on the formulation of development plans used to be in Part 2 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (‘the 1990 Act’). Part 2 provided that generally there should be for each area a structure plan (usually prepared by the council for a whole county) and a series of local plans (each prepared by the relevant district council, covering all or part of its area). The 1990 Act also provided, where there was a single-tier system of borough councils, for unitary development plans (UDPs). When the current single-tier system of local government was introduced in Wales under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 (‘the 1994 Act’), the new unitary authorities were required to prepare UDPs for their areas.
133.Part 6 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (‘the 2004 Act’) then introduced for Wales a new nation-wide Wales Spatial Plan, to be prepared by the (then) National Assembly for Wales. It also introduced a requirement for local planning authorities to produce local development plans (LDPs) that, when adopted, would replace plans adopted under the previous systems.
134.The Planning (Wales) Act 2015 amended the 2004 Act by introducing the National Development Framework for Wales (NDF), which became part of the development plan and replaced the Wales Spatial Plan (as of 24 February 2021). It also provided for strategic development plans (SDPs) to be produced at a regional level, with the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 requiring their production by corporate joint committees.
135.Essentially therefore the progression over time has been local/structure plans (up to 1996); UDPs (1996 to 2005); LDPs, SDPs and the NDF (2005 onwards). Each time the system has changed the amending legislation has provided for transitional arrangements. These allowed authorities preparing plans under one system to continue to do that and only move to the new system once the old plan had been completed. When the 2004 Act came into force there were still authorities in Wales with local or structure plans under the pre-1996 system as well as those with UDPs under the pre-2004 system.
136.The 1994 Act made amendments to Part 2 of the 1990 Act to apply the provisions about UDPs to Wales, and to provide for transitional arrangements about the status of local and structure plans until authorities adopted UDPs. The last UDP in Wales was adopted in 2011, and therefore those transitional provisions are spent and can be repealed. The Act therefore omits:
137.The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 (Commencement No 6, Transitional Provisions and Savings) Order 2005(4) brought into force provisions of the 2004 Act giving effect to LDPs and repealing Part 2 of the 1990 Act. The 2005 Order included provisions preserving the effect of existing plans during the transitional period before each local planning authority had adopted its LDP. Section 204 of the Planning Act 2008 made further transitional provisions to ensure that the blight notice procedure continued to apply to land affected by plans adopted under the previous systems. So far as they applied to areas that still had local or structure plans when the 2004 Act came into force, these transitional provisions are no longer needed; the Act amends the 2005 Order and section 204 of the Planning Act 2008 to remove them.
138.The Act also omits section 186 of the Planning Act 2008 (at paragraph 20(2) of this Schedule to the Act), which has never been brought into force. It relates to the powers of the High Court in relation to legal challenges to UDPs adopted under Part 2 of the 1990 Act. Legal challenges to UDPs would have to have been brought within a matter of weeks after their adoption, so any prospect of such a challenge had disappeared by 2012.