Everyone’s talking about the NPPF

Or so it seems.  My inbox and LinkedIn are bursting with messages about it, so this is a personal and selective take on the revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework which came into effect on 17 August.

While I may have ideological reasons favouring decentralised decision making, in practice when it comes to some aspects of the planning system that doesn’t make a lot of sense.  We have 317 local authorities in England and that shouldn’t mean that we need 317 different sets of wording for affordable housing section 106 agreements.  I therefore welcome the prospect of standardised wording for planning obligations and planning conditions.  Too often the cost of agreeing the form of section 106 agreements for small and medium sized schemes is disproportionate as developers get to grips with the minutiae of how these things are dealt with in a particular area. It will also speed up the process, as there should be no objection to a developer’s solicitor preparing the draft agreement when it is based upon approved national clauses.

The same goes for the new 79 National Decision-Making Policies (NDMPs).  These will save the constant reinventing of the wheel at local plan inquiries, cutting down inquiry time and making local plans shorter and easier to understand.    What I am less keen on is the dishonesty in continuing to pretend that the local plan has primacy.   The NDMPs are expressed as taking priority over development plan policies – as any development plan policy which is “materially inconsistent” with national decision-making policies is to be given “very limited weight”.  I wonder whether this back door undermining of the statutory primacy of development plans will face a legal challenge.  Whatever, I think it would be a lot clearer if the hierarchy between national and local policies was given a statutory footing rather than the national guidance effectively usurping the legal situation. 

At last we now have some real policy weight being given to development around railway stations.  It seems that study after study has recommended this, but still that hasn’t resulted in enough development being built in these locations.   With the new clear policy presumption – in urban areas, outside settlements and even in green belts - let’s hope that even if schemes are turned down at first instance that they will now be allowed on appeal.

And finally, on the subject of green belts, the government needs to be congratulated on sticking to its guns in respect of the relatively new grey belt policy.   While this had come under sustained attack from some quarters the policy has been retained intact and green belt policy has been expanded slightly further.

There’s a lot more to the NPPF changes than I have mentioned here and their full impact will be seen over time.  While I may shed the occasional tear over the loss of local control, my pragmatic side welcomes these changes.

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