New NPPF / Changes to England Planning Policy

[Ferdinand]

There has been a big announcement in Parliament by the Housing Minister of State about big revisions to the planning framework.

These were my expectations posted elsewhere, which seem mainly to have been delivered, though not necessarily quite in this form:

IMO they need to hit the vested interests which are blocks (eg speculative private land banking), in a way that aligns Local Political interests with development following the legal principles. In a way which is enforcible.

My checklist of what is required:

1 Local Councillors to be focussed on long term direction / strategy / local plans, not micro-management of individual applications.
2 Individual applications to be determined by Planning Professionals following law, not Planning Committees following parish pump politics. This should also remove some conflicts of interest / opportunity for corruption, though not all.
3 Housing targets to be mandatory, and obsessed objectively.
4 Possibilities for robust intervention if local Councillors sit on their hands.
5 Planning Gain to be capped in some effective way.
6 Encouragement / facilitation for local councils to be more proactive in Compulsory Purchase, potentially involving the opportunity to intervene on sustainable (in planning terms) development sites.
7 Possibility is streamlining enforcement.
8 All of the above will require capacity building.

My tentative assessments (just from the speech) on what may impact self-builders are:

- Much increased pressure on councils to pass local plans, and have them in place quickly. Transitional arrangements for a few months.
- The pre-Election NIMBY-pandering done by the last Government is being summarily reversed. Good.
- Planning Committees powers to micro-manage individual application will be reducing. PP will be tipping towards determination by Planning Officers.
- Building on grey or brown belt to become more straight forward, ie on scrubby bits of the Green Belt. Likely to be a slow-burn - 6 months not next week.
- If a development follows planning principles and does not walk the edges of what is acceptable, chances of getting it through straightforwardly are better than before.
- Heavy circumscribing of use of "viability assessments" by developers, which is a tool used to control the planning process. Not really relevant to self-builders, but interesting.

But these are major changes, so take time to do the homework. There are a few webinars being announced.

NPPF announcement and document::

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2#full-publication-update-history
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/675abd214cbda57cacd3476e/NPPF-December-2024.pdf

[Alan Ambrose]

Hmmm, I'm not as optimistic as you re the move to give planning officers more power. There's loads of blatant 'decision based on single person's opinion alone' there already and this will empower the planning officer's even more in that regard rather than having a check and balance.

[Alan Ambrose]

BBC reporting new targets compared to old:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c878ppdexl3o