Part 1 – Qualifying Authorities
194.Paragraph 1 requires the Secretary of State, by means of an order, to name “qualifying authorities” for the purposes of Schedule 7. These are the eighteen local planning authorities which, by the time the Select Committee in the House of Lords had reported, had given the Secretary of State satisfactory undertakings about the handling of planning applications (set out in a Planning Memorandum developed with local authorities). A similar arrangement was adopted for the planning aspects of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
195.Paragraph 1 also allows the Secretary of State to make orders revoking the conferring of “qualifying authority” status and to make subsequent naming orders in certain circumstances. Before making such an order, the Secretary of State is to consult the nominated undertaker and, if it is not the body requesting the order, the relevant local planning authority.
196.Paragraph 2 allows for any order under paragraph 1 to set out any transitional arrangements that may be necessary (for example, were a local planning authority to cease to be a qualifying authority for the purposes of the Act whilst a number of undetermined planning applications were before it).
