Transport & Works Orders, Infrastructure Projects and Parliamentary

Historically many if not all infrastructure projects tended to be promoted by Private Bill in Parliament - eg railways, canals, harbours. Such Private Bills could also confer particular powers on statutory bodies such as local authorities, railway companies, harbour authorities and the like. The Transport and Works Act 1992 provided a new and wide jurisdiction to promote railways, tram schemes etc, together with works interfering with certain public rights of navigation, by secondary rather than primary legislation. A number of Acts, such as the Harbours Act 1964, provide for certain other schemes to proceed under delegated rather than primary legislation. A considerable portion of the former Private Bill jurisdiction has thus now effectively passed from Parliament to the relevant Secretary of State. In the result, contested proceedings in such matters are now generally heard at public inquiry rather before Select Committees.

Some matters do, however, still involve Parliament. These include Private Bills dealing with certain powers for particular local authorities and, for instance, Bank reorganisations. Additionally, although most railway schemes proceed by Transport & Works Act Order ("TWO"), some very large schemes, such as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link and CrossRail, still proceed by Public Bills declared to be hybrid in character; these still can involve parties represented by advocates appearing before a Committee on a contested basis.

Infrastructure projects include a wide variety of schemes, such as trams, railways, harbour works, energy schemes (including wind farms, both onshore and offshore), bridges and roads. There exists a variety of statutory procedures for gaining consent or authorisation for such projects. These include:

• TWOs under the Transport & Works Act 1992 (covering railways, trams and the like and also works interfering with public rights of navigation within England and Wales and territorial waters).
• Orders under the Harbours Act 1964 in respect of works and powers in existing and proposed harbours.
• Road schemes promoted under the Highways Act 1980.
• Consents for electricity generating stations (including wind power schemes over 50MW) under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989.

Members of Chambers are actively engaged in all of these fields.

More notable cases in recent years include:

• Involvement on behalf of various parties in respect of the Crossrail Bill; also Mersey Tunnels Bill
• TWOs for Thameslink, Merseytram, two extensions to the Birmingham Metro, various schemes for the Manchester Metrolink, Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, Leigh Guided Busway, various DLR proposals.
• Promotion (by Harbour Revision Order and/or under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990) of harbour projects at Dibden Bay, Hull, Poole, Teignmouth, Bristol.
• Major windfarm proposals in England and Wales, including Caton Moor (repowering), Little Cheyne Court, Scout Moor, Whinash, Keadby; Offshore proposals including London Array, Greater Gabbard and Scarweather Sands. Projects in Scotland including Harestanes, Clashindarroch, Snow Goat and Lochelbank.
• Infrastructure works and other proposals such Poole Harbour Bridge, Thames Gateway Bridge, Central London Congestion Charging (and western extension of scheme).