The 2008 Planning Act introduced a new approach for determining large (‘nationally significant’) infrastructure projects in a new national process that would unify consent regimes and speed up decisions within fixed timescales outside of local planning. Major housing schemes have been excluded from this process, despite repeated attempts by recent UK governments to allocate more land for housebuilding through parallel reforms to the English planning system. This paper explores why Nationally Significant Infrastructure Planning (NSIP) has not been used for housing schemes, using the example of housing to reflect on debates about potential democratic deficits in the NSIP process and the selective politicisation of infrastructure planning in England. In doing so, the paper makes a distinctive contribution to practice and research by linking together debates about the politics of planning for housing in England and international literature on democratic process in the delivery of critical infrastructure.

2008 年《规划法》引入了一种新方法，用于在新的国家程序中确定大型（“国家重大”）基础设施项目，该程序将统一同意制度并在地方规划之外的固定时间范围内加快决策。尽管最近英国政府多次尝试通过对英国规划体系的平行改革来分配更多土地用于房屋建设，但主要的住房计划已被排除在这一进程之外。本文探讨了为什么没有将国家重大基础设施规划 (NSIP) 用于住房计划，并以住房为例来反思关于 NSIP 过程中潜在的民主赤字和英格兰基础设施规划的选择性政治化的辩论。在这样做，