Marine and Coastal Access Bill
The RICS welcomes the recent joint committee report on the Draft Marine Bill and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee report on the coastal access provisions of the Bill.

Both of these reports have now called for landowners to be financially compensated for the effects of the new coastal access law which offers the public unbridled access to their land and property. Compensatory measures must be put in place for breaches of security, safety and any subsequent drop in capital values when the government publishes the final Bill.

Contact: Damian Cleghorn e dcleghorn@rics.org.

Saving Gateway Bill
The Queen's Speech will introduce a Savings Bill to help homeownership and wealth ownership generally - giving eight million people on low incomes access to a national savings scheme, with each pound saved matched by a contribution from Government.

The savings scheme follows the strand of policy started with savings accounts for children i.e. encouraging asset ownership for all to help poorer households ride out shocks to their income.

It could help lower income first-time buyers overcome the deposit/stamp duty barrier.

But any help to homeownership would surely still be far outweighed by market conditions (credit crunch or poor housing affordability).

Contact: James Rowlands e jrowlands@rics.org.

Heritage Protection Bill
RICS warmly welcome the changes that will be brought about as a result of the measures in the Bill. In particular we support: 

The creation of a simplified, accessible, accountable and responsive management system for the historic environment strongly integrated into the planning system, and reaching across terrestrial and marine domains.

The associated guarantees to retain or improve current levels of heritage protection, including in particular the commitment from DCMS to underwrite new demands on capacity generated by the proposed changes in England.

The clarity and accessibility of the new process arising from the broad adoption of terms and definitions from existing statute and case law, including the duty to have ‘special regard’ to the ‘special interest’ of heritage assets. 

To support the measures in the Bill the Government must ensure that adequate resources are put in place.

In particular local planning authorities must be able to access the skilled professional advice that is needed to adequately maintain the historic environment.  

RICS urge the Government to start thinking now about the transition process that will put in place the measures within the Bill.

It is essential that the complete system is in place before it comes into force, rather than bringing it in on a piece by piece basis. Taking the second approach would make it more difficult for practitioners as they will be unclear which system they are working under.

Contact: James Rowlands e jrowlands@rics.org.

Business Rates Supplement Bill
RICS is concerned about the practical implementation and consequences of the proposed Bill on business.

It will be important that any supplement is structured in such a way as to ensure its credibility and to avoid it being seen as simply an additional tax burden on businesses.

The best means for doing this will be to ensure that any supplement is set at a low level and hypothecated to defined purposes that clearly fall outside the normal remit of local authority expenditure.

RICS consider it vital that businesses paying the supplement benefit from the consequent economic development.

Contact: Nadia Nath-Varma e nnathvarma@rics.org