And yet more amendments to subordinate legislation

And did I mention these other statutory instruments? They were all made on the same date and come into force at the same time as the others - the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes)(Amendment)(England) Order 2015 (SI 2015 No.597), the Town and Country Planning (Compensation)(England) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015 No.598), the Town and Country Planning (Section 62A applications)(Procedure and Consequential Amendments)(Amendment) (England) Order 2015 (SI 2015 No.797), and the Town and Country Planning General (Amendment)(England) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015 No.807).

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it is rather suspicious that after ministers had made such a fuss about these various proposed changes, they delayed actually laying them before parliament until the very last week of the parliamentary session, when MPs were distracted by thoughts of the coming end of this parliament, not to mention events elsewhere that rather distracted attention from what was or was not going on in the Westminster village.

Incidentally, the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (England) Order 2015 (SI 2015 No. 659) must be one of the shortest-lived statutory instruments on record, having already been repealed by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (SI 2015 No. 596). [Note that the number of the repealed SI is higher than the number of the SI that repeals it – rather odd that, don’t you think?]

© MARTIN H GOODALL