FREE AT LAST or HANGING ON BY A GOLDEN THREAD – WHERE DOES THE NPPF TAKE THE PLANNING SYSTEM?

BACKGROUND

The draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has been published and is out to consultation until 17 October. It is the government’s attempt to simplify the planning policy background against which development proposals are measured, reducing the national guidance contained in umpteen (47) PPGs or PPSs and instructions to Chief Officers from a staggering 1000+ pages to an unbelievably brief 50+. If its aim in making the system less wieldy was to stir up a hornet’s nest of controversy and to put planning back on the front page, so soon after Localism, then it has already been a roaring success.

So, what does it say or not say that has caused such an inordinate level of knicker-twisting amongst organisations such as The National Trust, English Heritage, the RTPI, the Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and why do so many people read into the same modest document such a diverse range of sinister objectives and noble aspirations? In this paper we try to understand if, how and why an essentially Tory government has managed to hit on a policy that appears to have alienated it from many of its more conservative supporters (and The Guardian).

What does the NPPF promote?

“THE PRESUMPTION”

The main thrust of the NPPF, its “golden thread”, is its overriding presumption that the planning system has, as its principal role, the promotion of growth and that this role should, if a proposed development is “sustainable”, require its immediate approval. If development is in line with the local plan, it should be approved without delay, and, if the local plan is not up-to-date or clear, the development should be allowed anyway, provided that it is “sustainable”.

Comment - it is the “presumption” that has created the furore and the dire predictions from the aforementioned worthies who see it as open season on those areas (green belt, listed buildings, woodlands, countryside, etc) which it has hitherto been the role of planning to protect. In practice, however, this cannot be the government’s intention, and local government, maligned and beset from all sides as it is, will not allow it to happen, even at the cost of a vast increase in the number of appeals, while “sustainability” and “out-of-date” are given a good legal thrashing to establish a definition.

- It is surely in everyone’s interest to see up-to-date local plans, and if it speeds up the woefully slow LDF process, then it has to be a good thing;

- Given that “key principles of sustainability” are cited in the NPPF as including protection of the Green Belt and AONBs, the demise of these areas under the bulldozers of economic growth has surely been announced prematurely. Admittedly, sustainability remains something of a skeleton concept, one which the government seems loathe to flesh-out, but, when that happens, the inclusion of green belt land, AONBs, grade one agricultural land and ancient woodlands amongst the areas in which development is by definition, unsustainable would put a stop to the sort of scare-mongering that has been seen of late.

- Approving development that is in accordance with an up-to-date local plan is hardly a new idea, though doing it quickly or seeing it done quickly and in a frame of mind that pre-supposes development to be essentially positive will come as a bit of a shock to some planners and most developers.

“TOWN CENTRE FIRST”

Current town centre policy requires that proposals for main town centre uses be located centrally and only sited outside defined centres when there is no sequentially preferable site available. The new draft maintains this approach “where practical”. Main town centre uses are defined in paragraph 7 of PPS4 and comprise retail, leisure, office tourism and cultural development. The NPPF reduces this definition affectively to retail and leisure. Most commentators have seen this as freeing office development from the requirement to locate centrally, though it should not be forgotten that this freedom will also now extend to hotels, museums, galleries and the like. Where impact testing is required, the test period is extended from five to ten years.

Comment - town centre first has hardly been a great success if, as the British Council for Shopping Centres noted in respect of 2007, only 35% of retail space was built in town centres. It is nonetheless important to note that, while the main thrust of this policy remains towards the promotion of town centre shopping, the document looks to guide development towards the most appropriate locations, which may yet be out-of-centre.

- Ten year testing of impact is probably unrealistic when wholly unforeseen development might easily come forward over such a period.

- That the same rigour should be applied to offices seems less significant, albeit that these places of work also support the retail sector when centrally located. Out-of-town business parks and offices in district or suburban locations are less contentious provided that they are accessible by public transport and are, thereby, sustainable. In such circumstances the relaxation of the sequential test requirements seem appropriate and are really only a short step back to the origins of PPG6 which was devised to counter the threat to town centres posed by out-of-town superstores.

“HOUSING TARGETS AND BROWNFIELD SITES”

The NPPF confirms that regionally set housing targets are no longer to be applied and it also drops the national target for housing development on brownfield land. Local plans should look to allow for 15 years of housing growth and each council should identify five years worth of readily developable land, with an extra year’s worth on top to encourage competition. In the absence of regional guidance, local authorities should work together to meet shared goals. Village growth is to be encouraged where it meets identified local needs.

Comment - this too has set alarm bells ringing among those who see it as a developer’s charter to build over our green and pleasant land, but they are probably false alarms. To have a rolling programme of developable housing land, with the built-in flexibility of a 20% competitive element, must be a good thing and to force neighbouring councils to co-operate in its achievement is going to be constructive and entertaining, especially in towns with tight, county borough boundaries and South Nimbyshire for neighbours.

- Brownfield development will still figure prominently in the hierarchy of developable sites because they are, for the most part, in locations that are more sustainable, while some brownfield development, especially in the countryside, has in the past been allowed despite its relative inaccessibility. The blurring of the green/brown edges is, therefore, no bad thing, provided that sustainable means more than having a photo-voltaic cell on the roof.

AND THE RUNNERS UP ARE.....................

As with most changes, a few grab the headlines and a lot of other stuff slips through unnoticed. As this is basically a condensing of existing policy rather than a major review, much is as you’d expect. The significance and setting of heritage assets are still important, as is high quality design. Green Belts remain sacrosanct, and the need for exceptional justification remains if development is to be permitted. Climate change mitigation continues to figure high in planning strategy. Economic growth is very much to the forefront of the policies to which planners must have regard.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a danger, when reducing policy guidance to its bones, that it creates more opportunity for argument and misinterpretation and even more need for the still greater amount of explanatory guidance that accompanied the PPG/PPS system. That this has already happened therefore comes as no surprise, but most of the negative reaction seems to be no more than the knee-jerk response that is normally heard from groups whose default retort is “no”. Of course, there will be need for clarification, maybe lots of it, and there will be arguments and appeals over some of the phrases and paragraphs that need tightening up.

There have, perhaps, been opportunities for reform that will not be taken through the NPPF, (surely the Green Belt is overdue a review), but its role has been stream-lining rather than radical re-writing.

How the pro-growth “golden thread” co-exists with the localism agenda is likely to vary enormously from place to place, but, overall, the simplification of the planning system, must be a good thing and the draft NPPF seems a worthy first attempt, albeit not the developers’ charter that some people believe it to be.

So much of what the NPPF hopes to deliver, by way of sustainable economic growth, will depend upon local government’s ability to deliver up-to-date plans and fast decisions, and that ability, never obvious in the good times, is under serious threat now, in the face of very serious belt-tightening. It seems obvious that local planning authorities will struggle to play their part in an economic recovery driven by the NPPF while their resources are being pared away – Catch 22. Post NPPF, the government must make sure they have the tools to do the job.

SO, WHAT’S NEXT?

The consultation period runs until 17 October. In contrast to most consultation drafts, we can expect the second edition to contain a lot of changes, and the government has already issued a strong rebuttal of what it sees as the myths that already surround the NPPF. On balance, the NPPF is worthy of support, both for its principle of simplification and for its common-sense attitudes towards economic growth and sustainable development.

Consultees should press for early and precise definitions of sustainability, out-of-date and other phrases that are fundamental to a proper interpretation of the policies, and for clarification as to the whereabouts and status of the explanatory guidance that will underpin the NPPF. Most of all, perhaps, the local plan process, which seems to have stalled badly with the change to LDFs et al, needs to be given a re-boot, so that we can all work to up to date plans, which accord with national policy, and stop bickering.

But, maybe most important, given the hostile reaction to the positive tenor of the NPPF is that as many people as possible should be responding to the consultation in a positive manner welcoming the approach, even if there are somme rough edges to be rubbed off.

Respondents might also just like to observe that any good coming from the NPPF might be all too easily lost if Council planning departments are cut to the bone. We believe it is a sign of the times that we seem to be hearing more and more from officers who are genuinely stretched and unable to give the type of attention to PreApp and applications that they would like.

If you want to respond to Government on the NPPF:

Alan C Scott
National Planning Policy Framework
Department for Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU

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