With a new government come lots of aspirations for reform and improvement of the planning system – only time will tell whether these are effective. Apart from revision of the National Planning Policy Framework and the method of measuring housing need with associated reinstatement of mandatory housing supply numbers in local plans, etc (see NPPF report opposite), some changes In the pipeline include further attention to planning department resourcing and appointment of 300 new planning officers, limiting extensions of time to one, consolidation of the permitted development rules, and the implementation of more sections of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) – although this last is open to dispute: for example section 111 of the Act which took effect on 31st March 2024 requires developers to serve a commencement notice before implementing a planning permission, but does not specify exactly how this is to be done.
Included in Labour’s planning manifesto but not yet announced or part of the NPPF changes are proposals for new towns, more planning powers for regional mayors and combined authorities, real sanctions for local planning authorities that fail to update their local plans, development of a ten-year infrastructure strategy, and a commitment to set out new national policy statements and “benefits” for communities affected by development.
The 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) Regulations that came into force on 12 February 2024 for major applications and 2 April 2024 for small sites (those with an area less than 0.5 hectare or with fewer than 10 dwellings and commercial sites below one hectare or with less than 1,000 square metres) have proved and continue to be very difficult to understand and expensive to implement properly. Note, however, that householder and permitted development rights applications are exempt, along with most self-build and custom build developments, and those that impact an area of less than 25 square metres or less than 5 metres of linear habitats such as hedgerows.
A further promised reform that the new government has suggested is to development management and a consultation on this has been promised later in the year. The planning system and its procedures are therefore constantly changing and this is another reminder that all national planning policy guidance is available on line and is regularly updated.
Comment from past president
Andrew Catto
I think we need to be clearer that only cutting back the overgrowth will achieve swifter permissions. Higher fees may swell LPA coffers, but extra costs inhibit development and there are no more planning officers available to be hired. To get more permissions out of the same hours (which is what they seek) can only be done by removing from the planning department almost everything outside use and scale. If it is in building regs (and even the dustbins are), that’s when compliance should be checked. Commodity – planning. Firmness – Building Regs. Delight – let the market decide. Good design sells itself. And if anyone needs reminding on that last point, whenever the public are asked what buildings they like / don’t, almost everything they like was built before we had a planning system, and almost everything they hate did need and got planning consent. For policy guidance go to www.gov.uk and find Planning Practice Guidance.
ACA responds to the new government’s consultation on the proposed revised NPPF
In general the revised NPPF that was issued for consultation on 30th July contains a number of detailed amendments and adjustments to some of the wording of policies which we agree with in principle. In particular, various references to beauty are omitted or replaced by an emphasis on good design, while a widening and clarification of some definitions (eg affordable housing, brownfield land, tenure mix, upwards extensions, grey belt land, etc).
The Method of calculating housing need and the provision of housing land in local authority plans is to be completely revised, with amended targets, but this is very technical and the ACA does not feel competent to comment. There is also in some parts a suggestion that strategic and cross-border planning will be more prominent, along with a greater emphasis on affordable housing provision, which we agree with.
We do believe that the revised document misses an opportunity to improve planning application procedures and performance by concentrating on higher fees instead of reducing the ever-expanding workload of planning officers who now have to comment on a wide variety of technical requirements, many of which do not relate to land use planning and/or are covered by other legislation such as building regulations and so should in our view not be part of the planning process at all.
For anyone keen to respond to the consultation, here is a breakdown of the 106 questions that it asks.
Questions 1-3, 6-11, 15-19, 38-39, 40-41 and 47-50 all relate in various ways to the revised standard method of measurement for housing numbers.
Questions 4 and 5 relate to residential density and design codes. We note that a very recent consultation by the previous government has dealt with these issues, which need caution and careful thought.
In response to questions 12-14 and 20-21, as noted above we do support cross-boundary and strategic planning as well as the new proposed definitions of brownfield and previously-developed land.
Questions 22-39 and 42-46 concern a new green/grey belt policy which allows for the redevelopment, under certain detailed conditions and with a number of caveats, of poor-quality green belt areas, now defined as grey belts. We certainly agree with this concept and the safeguards that are now described.
We also agree with questions 51 – 57, which introduce development with tenure mix/types and widened definitions for some types of housing need and affordable housing requirement.
We agree with questions 58-61, which strengthen small sites policy, remove references to beauty/beautiful and widen the definition of upward extensions, but have no further comments on delivering a diverse range of homes.
More flexibility for building a strong economy, better public infrastructure and a prosperous rural economy are included in the rewording of paragraphs 84 to 87, all of which is agreed (questions 62-69).
We have no comments on the technical changes proposed in paragraphs 97 to 113 on healthy communities and childhood obesity, as well as wind/solar projects, climate change, etc (questions 70-88) except to point out that detailed consideration of some of these issues are often not relevant to land use planning. However we support the emphasis on “a vision led approach” and properly “tested scenarios” for their assessment.
With regard to proposed planning fee increases, we suggest these must be ring-fenced to remain as applied to planning departments. We note that fee increases were implemented very recently and further rises are difficult to justify (questions 89-93). As noted above, resources for planning and development control could be greatly improved by the reduction in workload for planning officers by removing from planning applications whenever possible the many onerous measurable and technical requirements that are covered by other legislation.
Questions 94-96 relate to proposed varied application fees that could be set locally and we disagree strongly with this. First because the planning system is a monopoly and must be open to competition if fees are to be varied in this way; second because it is hard to understand how setting varied fee scales can be monitored (the often exorbitant and unregulated fees charged by local planning authorities for pre-application services that are sometimes of very poor quality demonstrate that this will not work well); and third because as already noted there is no ring-fencing of application fee incomes.
Questions 97 to 106 relate to miscellaneous other planning services, fees for development consent orders, costs recovery, and general comments