Proposed revisions to National Planning Policy Framework
The government has published a consultation on its proposed approach to revising the National Planning Policy Framework in an effort to achieve sustainable growth in the planning system. The consultation will run until 24 September 2024.
The government propose changes to the National Planning Policy Framework immediately following the close of the consultation, which will aim to achieve economic growth to improve the prosperity of the country and the living standards of working people. Of particular significance, the proposals include an increase to housing targets and amendments to Green Belt policy.
Prior to December 2023 the 5-year housing land supply required local authorities to annually identify and update a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing, but changes were made in December 2023 which weakened this as a fallback route to encourage planning permissions to be granted where local plan policies are not up to date. To address this, the government propose reversing these changes and re-establishing the requirement for all local authorities to continually demonstrate 5 years of specific, deliverable sites for housing. This will again put the onus on local authorities to meet their housing targets.
As well as re-introducing the 5-year housing supply, the government also propose a new standard method for assessing housing need to support the government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes in the next five years. Local authorities will only be entitled to plan for a lower figure when they can demonstrate hard constraints and that they have exhausted all other options.
In order to deliver the homes and commercial development the country needs, the government is proposing the targeted release of areas of the Green Belt that will be designated as ‘grey belt land’. Grey belt land will be Green Belt Land which makes a limited contribution to the Green Belt’s purposes and local authorities will be empowered to release low quality grey belt sites to ensure enough land is made available for new homes. It is intended that grey belt land will have a high sustainable development potential, while also avoiding providing incentives to allow the degradation of existing Green Belt land.
Amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework would also require local authorities to undertake a Green Belt review where an authority cannot meet its identified housing, commercial or other need without altering Green Belt Boundaries. A new paragraph is proposed to the National Planning Policy Framework that will make clear that, in instances where a local authority cannot demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply or is delivering less than 75% against the housing delivery test, or where there is unmet commercial or other need, development in the Green Belt will not be considered inappropriate when it is on sustainable grey belt land and would not fundamentally undermine the function of the Green Belt.
The changes proposed to the National Planning Policy Framework loosen restrictions on obtaining planning permission for development and would again put the onus back n local authorities to meet their housing targets. Whilst the targets are certainly ambitious, it is submitted that are to be welcomed because they provide genuine and credible efforts to support housing delivery and boost the economy.
