On 22 December 2022 the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published a consultation document on the proposed reforms to National Planning Policy together with their proposed revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework, which sets out Government’s planning policies for England. The consultation will end on 2 March 2023. The Government has advised that they will respond to the consultation in “Spring 2023”, adopting the NPPF revisions.
The proposed revisions to the NPPF are in advance of a ‘fuller’ review of the Framework, dependent on the implementation of the Government’s proposals for wider changes to the planning system, including those set out in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill.
While much of the NPPF remains unchanged, there are notable proposed reforms that will have implications for housing delivery, design and local plan progression.
The proposed revisions are highly significant. Some of the most notable proposals are summarised below:
- Removal of requirement for Local Planning Authorities to continually demonstrate a deliverable five-year housing land supply, providing its housing requirement in its strategic policies is less than five-year years old.
- Changes to the tests of soundness for plan-making. Specifically, removal of the ‘justified’ test and amendments to the ‘positively prepared’ test to insert that LPA’s only need to meet objectively assessed needs ‘so far as possible’ and removing requirement to satisfy unmet need from neighbouring authorities.
- Confirmation that the standard methodology is an advisory starting point for establishing a housing requirement and that the methodology incorporates an uplift for the top 20 cities/urban centres (this is already in the NPPG).
- When establishing housing need, reference to older people is proposed to be widened to include retirement housing, housing with care and care homes.
- Past over-delivery can be deducted from the housing requirement figure in a new plan and there is explicit reference that building at densities significantly out of character with an existing area may be justification for not meeting full assessed needs.
- Boosting the status of Neighbourhood Plans by strengthening their protection against paragraph 11d arguments (“the tilted balance”) by removing any test against housing supply or delivery and extending the development plan protection period from 2 to 5 years, in the test of whether adverse impacts are likely to significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of development.
- Greater protection for the Green Belt in plan-making terms through stating that Green Belt boundaries are not required to be reviewed and altered if this would be the only means of meeting the objectively assessed need for housing over the plan period. There is no proposed change to development in the Green Belt and the very special circumstances test and how this is applied to planning applications.
- Reference to approving extended duration of existing renewable development where its impacts are or can be made acceptable and significant weight to energy efficiency improvements to existing buildings.
- Regular additional referencing to supporting ‘beauty’ in design and placemaking and stronger emphasis on local design codes. This is consistent with previous Government announcements. There is also a surprising inclusion of detailed guidance on the use of mansard roof extensions for upward extensions.
- Transition arrangements for both plan making and decision making. The revised tests of soundness only apply to plans that have not reached Regulation 19 stage or reach that stage within three months of the revised NPPF. Any LPAs which have been subject to a Regulation 18 or 19 consultation for plan making will only need to demonstrate four years of housing supply for a period of up to two years. A timeline for the transition to the reformed plan-making system is proposed following anticipated Royal Assent of the Bill.
- Outside of specific changes to the NPPF, the consultation also proposes whether ‘past irresponsible planning behaviour’ should be a material consideration. There is no definition of what such behaviour entails. It is however identified that the options for considering such behaviour do need to be the subject of further engagement with local planning authorities, the development sector and other stakeholders to ensure fairness. This also requires primary legislation.
Our Thoughts
In our opinion, the proposed changes are likely to have significant adverse implications for housing supply. The Government’s justification is for greater emphasis on the plan-making system, but it has watered down the tests of soundness so that plans do not have to be ‘justified’ or fully meet objectively assessed needs. The consequences of this dilution to the tests of soundness are that new Local Plans may be less robust than their predecessors. The proposed removal of the requirement to continually demonstrate a five-year housing supply for the first five years of an adopted plan will protect Local Plans that are failing and further constrain supply.
The strengthening of the Green Belt policy will be a local political green light to plan for below required needs and the requirement for the cities/urban areas uplift to be contained within these areas has already been demonstrated to be undeliverable in several instances. The proposed changes are likely to exacerbate existing uncertainty and delays in plan-making.
There has been a failure to provide any assessment, alongside the consultation, which grapples with the conflict between these proposed changes and the much-needed commitment to delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.
Requirements to plan for housing to meet needs in full, and the mechanisms to enforce this, have generally been relaxed. This will have widespread implications for urban areas and Green Belt authorities in particular, where new development will need to be built at appropriate densities compatible with ‘local character’ whilst maintaining the existing Green Belt.
If the Government wants a system where plan-making provides more certainty, it needs to make the plan-making process more, not less, robust. The focus also needs to be on improving the resourcing of the planning system which is absent from this consultation apart from a short reference to a future fee increase consultation.
We consider the proposed changes to the NPPF have the potential to weaken the ability of planning to deliver the homes and other infrastructure needed to support the growth and prosperity of our communities. We encourage everyone in the industry to review the proposed changes and have their say.
The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) have also compiled resources to help inform discussions about changes to planning policy. They will also be holding a series of policy roundtables with members, with key dates and more information available here.
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