A greatly anticipated draft NPPF has been published on the last day before parliament summer recess. Surrey Development Forum Member Union4 Planning have outlined some key highlights below.
The Government had committed to publishing a revised NPPF by the end of July, and today they have done so. Some of the highlights and key changes proposed are outlined below following our initial review:
In paragraph 11, the presumption in favour of sustainable development proposes that permission is granted unless policies ‘for the supply of land’ are out of date, rather than the previous reference to policies ‘which are most important for determining the application’. This is an interesting change which will have subtle but important implications.
References to beauty, inserted by the last government, are removed throughout the document.
Paragraphs 24 – 27 confirm the importance of strategic cross boundary working between local authorities, and of consistency between their respective plan policies on strategic matters such as the delivery of major infrastructure, and meeting unmet development needs from neighbouring areas.
In paragraph 62, as anticipated, the local housing need assessment will no longer be advisory, but will establish the minimum number of houses needed.
The requirement for 10% affordable housing on major sites is removed in paragraph 66, replaced by the requirement for a mix of affordable housing which meets identified local needs, across affordable housing for rent and affordable home ownership tenures. This could potentially significantly increase the required proportion of affordable housing in some areas.
Paragraph 76 reverts to the requirement that LPAs should identify their five year housing land supply against their housing requirements or, where strategic policies are more than 5 years old, against their local housing need, even if their adopted Plan is less than five years old.
The same paragraph reinstates the 20% buffer to be added to the calculation of supply of sites where there has been significant under delivery for the past three years.
It is proposed that the four year housing land supply which could previously be relied on by Local Planning Authorities which have published their draft Reg 18 or Reg 19 Local Plan, including a policies map and proposed allocations is removed. These authorities would have to revert to assessing their supply against a five year housing requirement and would no longer be able to rely on publishing an annual position statement to confirm their five year supply.
We welcome the proposed changes to paragraphs 84 and 85 which require planning policies to identify suitable locations for data centres, digital infrastructure, and the support for making provision for grid connections and expansion or modernisation of other industries of local, regional or national importance including industries delivering decarbonisation. .
We welcome the additional policy support for the principle of using suitable brownfield land for development in sustainable locations.
The changes to Green Belt policy are obviously going to provide the focus for much of the commentary over the coming days. It is proposed that Green Belt boundaries should only be altered in exceptional circumstances, which should include, but not be limited to, where an authority cannot meet its identified need for new homes, commercial or other development. This will have a significant impact on the preparation of Local Plans for local authorities which have extensive areas of Green Belt within their boundaries, and are currently unable to meet their housing needs.
The draft NPPF also proposes including the 50% affordable housing provision in Green Belt referred to in Paragraph 155.
Paragraph 152 states that housing, commercial and other development should not be regarded as inappropriate in ‘grey belt’ in sustainable locations. The Glossary now defines ‘Grey Belt’ as:
“For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘grey belt’ is defined as land in the green belt comprising Previously Developed Land and any other parcels and/or areas of Green Belt land that make a limited contribution to the five Green Belt purposes (as defined in para 140 of this Framework), but excluding those areas or assets of particular importance listed in footnote 7 of this Framework (other than land designated as Green Belt).”
There’s a bit to unpack in that definition. How do we define whether a site makes “a limited contribution to the five Green Belt purposes”? A site might only contribute to one of the Green Belt purposes, but it might score highly when assessed against that particular purpose. The wording seems like it’s open to a qualitative or subjective judgement.
We welcome the proposal in paragraph 164 that all forms of renewable and low carbon development should be supported.
Another interesting deletion from the new NPPF is part of footnote 64, which removes the consideration of availability of agricultural land for food production when deciding which sites are appropriate for development.
Finally, the proposed implementation of the new NPPF is set out in Annex 1. It notes that local plans that reach adoption of their Plan with an annual housing requirement of more than 200 dwellings lower than the Local Housing Need figure will be expected to commence plan making at the earliest opportunity to address the shortfall in housing need.
There is clearly a lot to unpack and analyse here over the 8 week consultation period, but it is positive that the new Government has published the draft to the timeframe it previously committed to.
A version of the NPPF with annotated tracked changes can be found here.
The Draft NPPF is subject to a public consultation which will close at 11.45pm on 24th September 2024. Details of the consultation can be found here.
To read the original article on Union4 Planning website, please click here.
