The much heralded National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has now been released and adopted by Government says commercial property agent Prop-Search. This 59 page policy document forms the backbone of National Planning Policy Guidance and replaces guidance in a more concise form.
Simon Toseland, a Director of Prop-Search, says: “The Government has previously placed much emphasis on local planning by local councils and even neighbourhoods. However, due to the brevity of the guidance, the meaning of each statement will no doubt be subject to interpretation and it will be through testing these policies that the true extend of the shift in Government policy will be exposed.”
Prop-Search has studied the new NPPF document and highlights the most pertinent points:
• Presumption in favour of Sustainable Development
Under the previous planning system there was a ‘presumption in favour of development’ which has been carried forward through the new NPPF, with a further emphasis on sustainability. The document defines that as ‘ensuring that better lives for ourselves don’t mean worse lives for future generations’ and ‘making economic, environmental and social progress for this and future generations’. This presumption should be inherent in both plan-making and decision-taking.
• Local Plans and Transitional Arrangements
Local Plans should be produced by each Local Authority with policies consistent with that NPPF. Any additional development plan documents should only be used where clearly justified. This welcomed change represents a significant shift back to the old system of Local Plans that were a symbol of the last Conservative Government and should simplify the process to the layman.
However, in the short-term the adoption of the NPPF will still create a hiatus in the planning system and it is inevitable that the pro-development policies will conflict with some local planning policies – a point that Councils may struggle to rationalise locally in the ‘positive’ determination of applications. It will then be down to the Planning Inspectorate and in the worst case, the Secretary of State to determine applications. This will clearly hinder rather than help the development process in the short-term.
• Housing Land Supply
In order to maintain flexibility in the housing market, the NPPF has increased the requirement for Local Authorities to demonstrate a deliverable five year housing land supply by between 5% and 20%. The difficulty will be for those Boroughs where deliverable sites are not widely available and recent supply has been poor.
• Protection of Employment Land
The NPPF recognises that Local Authorities should avoid the long-term protection of sites allocated for employment use where there is no reseaonable prospect of a site being used for that purpose. The NPPF states that applications for re-development of such sites should be considered on their merits depending on market signals. The submission of viability and marketing reports will be increasingly important to support the development of unviable employment sites.
This could free up some additional sites for housing delivery in the short-term and result in the re-development of sites with poor quality commercial stock which can only be positive.
The consolidation of the National Guidance is a daring move and will inevitably result in a period of confusion, chaos and a lack of direction whilst landowners, practitioners and Councils alike digest and start to work with the policies.
