The Infrastructure Planning Commission is to be scrapped just eight months after it was set up.

The agency was created by the previous government to fast-track decisions on major energy and infrastructure projects, such as the planned nuclear power stations.

Its functions will now be transferred to the Planning Inspectorate.

Matt Thomson, the head of policy at the Royal Town Planning Institute, said: “We welcome the government’s clarification that the function of the IPC is to be retained even if the body itself is not.

“It is critical that there is a specialist body with the skills and expertise to consider proposals for essential major infrastructure projects to allow decisions to be made in the national interest.”

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