Moving on up? How DCO timescales have changed since Labour came to power.

By Alex Smith – Associate Director 

Ahead of last year’s general election, we reviewed the start-to-finish timescales for every DCO decision made by the Government since the Planning Act 2008 was introduced. Our findings? The average time taken for a project to go through the process had increased by around three months, with more than a fifth of all delays attributable to the Secretary of State. 

Since then, a lot has changed. Labour swept to power with a pledge to ‘back the builders, not the blockers’ and almost immediately approved three significant solar DCOs, including one kicked into the long grass by the previous Government. It was a promising start, and timescales should tighten further as part of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. But with the existing regime set to continue for at least a few months longer, how are things progressing in the meantime?   

Days Taken to Decide Each DCO Over Time, by Government

Back in May 2024, a total of 137 DCOs had been determined by various Secretaries of State. Two more were decided by Rishi Sunak’s Government prior to the general election – one got the decision on-time, while the other was more than two years late.  

Since Labour entered power, they’ve cast judgement on a total of 25 DCO applications. Of these, 14 have taken longer than the three months afforded in the DCO process, while 8 were decided on-time and 3 were decided slightly faster than expected.  

Three of the late decisions can be credited to the previous Government, as they were decided on by Labour as soon as possible after the general election. This means that the percentage of late versus on-time or early decisions is an even 50/50 split. Making on-time or early decisions for just half of the DCOs that crossed the Government’s desk is hardly an impressive feat, but it is broadly consistent with the previous Government’s performance at the end of their term. However, there’s better news when looking at the overall amount of time projects are spending in the DCO process. 

Of the projects decided since the general election, it has taken an average of 603 days, or around 20 months, for projects to go from Acceptance to Decision. This is longer than the Planning Inspectorate’s target of 18 months, but is an improvement on the previous Government’s track record. Across the final 25 DCOs decided on by the Conservatives, it took an average of 691 days (23 months) for a decision to be reached. For the 25 projects before that, it took an average of 703 days (23.5 months) to get a decision.  

So, as D:Ream didn’t write, things are (in this specific case) slowly getting better. Unless of course, you are the promoters for the AQUIND Interconnector who, four years after winning an appeal against the original decision to refuse development consent, continue to wait for their application to be redetermined. This means the project has spent longer in the DCO process than any other, at over 2,000 days – more than x3.5 the average.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is unlikely to result in huge changes to the amount of time that projects take to go through the formal stages of the DCO process, but the removal of statutory consultation requirements has the potential to shrink the amount of time developers spend forming their proposals.

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