Town and Country Planning Repeal Proposals

New consultation
The Law Commission consults widely before finalising its repeal proposals. The purpose of consulting is to secure as wide a range of views on the proposals as possible from anybody that may be affected by the proposals.

This consultation addresses those laws relating to Town and Country Planning which have become obsolete. We have targeted certain organisations and Government departments whom we believe to have a particular interest, but would welcome feedback from anybody with an interest.

Consultation paper with proposals. Consultation closes 30 September 2005.

Please email us with your views.

Statute law revision repeals statutes that are no longer of practical utility. The purpose is to modernise and simplify the statute book, reducing its size, and saving the time of lawyers and others who use it. This in turn helps to avoid unnecessary costs. It also stops people being misled by obsolete laws that masquerade as live law. If an Act features still in the statute book and is referred to in text-books, people reasonably enough assume that it must mean something.

The Law Commissions Act 1965 s.3(1) imposes a duty on both Commissions to keep the law under review "with a view to its systematic development and reform, including in particular ... the repeal of obsolete and unnecessary enactments, the reduction of the number of separate enactments and generally the simplification and modernisation of the law". This process is undertaken by the Commission's statute law revision team.

Implementation of the statute law revision proposals is by means of special Statute Law (Repeals) Bills. 17 such Bills have been enacted since 1965 repealing more than 2000 whole Acts and achieving partial repeals in thousands of others.