Defra Infrastructure Board
Establishment of a Defra Infrastructure Board was the third recommendation coming from the corporate report An independent review of Defra’s regulatory landscape, which was published 2 April 2025. The aims of the new board for the government is to help accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects by facilitating greater collaboration and stronger oversight within Defra and its arm’s-length bodies to unblock barriers to development at an early stage.
An independent review of Defra’s regulatory landscape says "Recommendation 3: Establish a Defra Infrastructure Board to accelerate the delivery of significant projects by providing early and strategic perspectives on priorities and outcomes. This should include a rolling, forward-looking pipeline of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and other wider complex projects where relevant; in-depth lessons learned from previous projects; working closely with developers to understand specific barriers; use of Imperative Reasons of Overriding Public Interest (IROPI) where needed to justify projects; and a transfer of legal risk from regulators to the department. This Board should ensure regulatory decisions balance costs and proportionality, escalating high-cost or disproportionate issues to Ministers. In the long term, the Government should improve and strengthen the outdated Regulators’ Code, to clarify the role of regulators in considering the costs of compliance and proportionality for those being regulated."
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