Thames Freeport - Britain's Trading Future

[ 40 ] Pinsent Masons is delighted to support the Thames Freeport. Unique among the proposed eight English freeports, the Thames Freeport is led by the key businesses in the area, which fully aligns with Pinsent Masons’ role as provider of professional services to business, with law at the core. The freeports initiative is particularly pertinent to Pinsent Masons as it brings together a number of key areas where the firm has a long and deep history of advising across its five global sectors: Infrastructure, Energy, Real Estate, Financial Services and Technology, Science and Industry. This particularly includes working on port operations, expansion and development; surrounding and connecting infrastructure; public/ private partnerships structuring and governance; urban regeneration and economic development; the automotive industry; and e-mobility. Pinsent Masons also has a long association with the Thames estuary. Most recently the firm successfully secured planning and related consents for Tilbury2 in 2019; and before that for London Gateway Port in 2008 and London Gateway Logistics Park in 2013. Pinsent Masons is also currently advising on the impacts of the Lower Thames Crossing and Thurrock Flexible Generation Plant proposals. Development Consent Orders Off the back of ‘Project Speed’ announced in 2020, the Government launched in July 2021 its review of the Planning Act 2008 Development Consent Order (DCO) regime for the consenting of nationally significant transport (including port), energy, water, waste, and waste water infrastructure projects. The Port of Tilbury’s successful use of the DCO regime to consent and build out Tilbury2 in record time has been hailed by the Government as an exemplar and is a key impetus behind the Review’s ambition, following the National Infrastructure Strategy, to halve by 2023 the time taken by some nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) to obtain consent. Pinsent Masons thinks that there is potential, through adaptation, innovation and improved learning and practice to take the Planning Act 2008 regime forward to better facilitate and deliver faster, better and greener nationally significant infrastructure such as ports, while still ensuring that it is open and inclusive and subject to a robust level of scrutiny. These reforms are not first and foremost about making wholesale legislative change, but about learning from practice and looking to innovate and focus on what is important and relevant. This is all about the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’, from inception to delivery. It is about improving collaboration at the right time and with the right informed resource and about enabling use of the Planning Act 2008 regime to deliver nationally significant infrastructure in its widest context where this would be beneficial. In summary, attention and resource should be focussed on: • Facilitating ‘intelligent clients’, by focussing in the proposed Government Projects Academy and Major Project Leadership Academy on mindful project initiation and structuring, with the planning and the consenting process firmly in sight • Updating the Ports National Policy Statement to reflect the changed evidence base post-Brexit, the Freeports initiative, net zero and emerging technologies • Bringing stakeholders to the table earlier, with a clear remit to deliver proactive outcomes and solutions, by promoting through Guidance, use of the Evidence Plan process and encouraging The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) to use ‘other meetings’ for roundtable discussions rather than just examination hearings • For peripheral stakeholders such as The Crown Estate, Bona Vacantia , Historic Railways Estate and government departments as Crown bodies — identifying NSIP leads and providing training on their importance to the regime of timely engagement and agreement • Updating Guidance, Advice Notes and PINS practices so that examinations are programmed for parties to respond consecutively rather than at the same time to deadlines, to have more specific agendas, and to use Red/Amber/ Green schedules focussing on areas of disagreement and on- going discussion; all to focus and make more effective use of examination time • Streamlining the Examination Procedure Rules to give examining authorities more discretion on how to deal with the applications • Streamlining the approach to Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA), preventing new ecological designations after DCO acceptance and reviewing the extent to which the DCO regime is a ‘one-stop shop’, e.g. by bringing in the registered common land regime. Local Development Orders Not only can the Port of Tilbury’s experience of the DCO regime help Government develop these reforms for the benefit of future DCOs where required for freeports, but Pinsent P I N S E N T M A S O N S The Government’s freeports initiative provides a golden opportunity to turbocharge its related policies for planning reform and for modernising public / private partnerships through development corporation reform. These policies will be at the heart of the Planning Bill expected later in the 2021/22 Parliamentary session.