1 August 2024The government is seeking views on proposed changes to the NPPF to support its wider objective “to achieve sustainable growth in our planning system” and “commitments to achieve economic growth and build 1.5 million new homes”.
Specified proposals included in the revised NPPF (which sets out the government’s planning policies for England and how these should be applied) include:
- Make the standard method for assessing housing needs mandatory, requiring local authorities to plan for the resulting housing need figure, planning for a lower figure only when they can demonstrate hard constraints and that they have exhausted all other options
- Reverse other changes to the NPPF made in December 2023 which were detrimental to housing supply
- Implement a new standard method and calculation to ensure local plans are ambitious enough to support the government’s manifesto commitment of 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament
- Broaden the existing definition of brownfield land, set a strengthened expectation that applications on brownfield land will be approved and that plans should promote an uplift in density in urban areas
- Identify grey belt land within the Green Belt, to be brought forward into the planning system through both plan and decision-making to meet development needs
- Improve the operation of ‘the presumption’ in favour of sustainable development, to ensure it acts an effective fail safe to support housing supply, by clarifying the circumstances in which it applies; and, introducing new safeguards, to make clear that its application cannot justify poor quality development
- Deliver affordable, well-designed homes, with new “golden rules” for land released in the Green Belt to ensure it delivers in the public interest
- Make wider changes to ensure that local planning authorities are able to prioritise the types of affordable homes their communities need on all housing development and that the planning system supports a more diverse housebuilding sector
- Support economic growth in key sectors, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy and future local growth plans, including laboratories, gigafactories, datacentres, digital economies and freight and logistics – given their importance to our economic future
- Deliver community needs to support society and the creation of healthy places
- Support clean energy and the environment, including through support for onshore wind and renewables
SLCC intends to respond to the consultation. If you would like to contribute to our response, please send your comments by email to Andrew Towlerton, SLCC National Planning Advisor, at [email protected] by close of play Tuesday 17 September 2024.
Click here for more information about the consultation. Please note the consultation closes at 11.45pm on 24 September 2024.
This consultation has now closed, click here to view SLCC’s response.
