Labouring hard on planning reform

Labour’s first 100 days demonstrate promise on planning. Preparation for planning reform started well in advance of the new government taking office on 4 July. In thanksgiving for Labour’s hard work in opposition, planning enthusiasts needed only to wait until 8 July for Rachel Reeves to propel the field into the headlights in her maiden speech and until 30 July for an entire raft of proposed planning reforms (including a revised draft National Planning Policy Framework) to be published for consultation. The consultation (accompanied by a written ministerial statement from Angela Rayner) closed on 24 September and now the toil begins on reviewing responses to the 106 questions posed before adopting a new NPPF by year-end. Rolling out the red carpet Alongside the consultation, the government established a New Towns Taskforce to recommend locations for new towns (including urban extensions) of at least 10,000 new homes within the next year. Moreover, the government has been in “yes” mode, approving 100% of the recovered appeals, call-ins and development consent orders which have come across its desk since entering office. The government’s approach to planning should be viewed through the prism of its key priorities, namely “sustained economic growth” and the delivery of “1.5m new homes”. A key theme across the government’s recent planning approvals has been the weight given to economic growth, a mantra repeated recently when the secretary of state recovered an appeal against Buckinghamshire Council’s refusal of permission for new film studios in the green belt, stating the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was “keeping the government’s mission to deliver economic growth at front of mind when making decisions about planning applications”.  No more red tape Planning was also at the forefront of last month’s International Investment Summit at which Sir Keir Starmer made a speech committing to pare back planning “regulation” where “it is stopping us building the homes… data centres… warehouses, grid connectors, roads, trainlines [required]”. Simultaneously, the government published Invest 2035: the UK’s modern industrial strategy for consultation, which aspires to use the planning system as a facilitator for growth. This chimes with proposals in the revised draft NPPF supporting the development of laboratories, gigafactories, data centres and digital infrastructure projects. More to come And Labour is still working; we expect a Planning and Infrastructure Bill later in the first parliamentary session (including measures to curtail the role of planning committees, address resourcing issues and reform compulsory purchase compensation rules); a consultation on the much-heralded return of strategic planning; and a long-term housing strategy. The key features of the government’s proposed planning reforms can be summarised as follows. Targeting new homes No longer will the so-called “standard method” be an “advisory starting point” for determining the minimum number of homes that a local planning authority should plan for in its area. Instead, a revised standard method is to be used as the basis for determining housing requirements in all circumstances. The requirement for all LPAs to continually demonstrate a five-year housing land supply returns. The revised standard method departs from using perceived volatile and outdated household projections as a baseline for establishing housing need in favour of existing housing stock. The changes aspire to bring greater certainty, boost the overall housing target (300,000-370,000 per annum,) and redistribute this, reducing London’s “unrealistic” target (currently one-third of national need) while increasing targets across all other regions. To overcome shortfalls in constrained authorities, the government will legislate to universalise cross-boundary strategic planning through supporting spatial development strategies both within and outside mayoral areas. Red brown grey green As well as establishing that development on brownfield land should be acceptable in principle, the government proposes requiring LPAs to undertake a green belt review where they are unable to meet housing, commercial or other needs by using brownfield land and wider opportunities. A sequential approach is required, prioritising previously developed land within the green belt, then so-called poor quality “grey belt land”, and then higher-performing green belt sites where these can be made sustainable. As a backstop, the release of land will not be supported where doing so would fundamentally undermine the green belt function across the plan area. As for decision-taking, where an LPA cannot demonstrate a five-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 on the green belt will not be considered inappropriate (meaning “very special circumstances” are not required to justify development) when it is on sustainable grey belt land, where the “golden rules” for major development are satisfied, and where development would not fundamentally undermine the function of the green belt across the plan area. The golden rules require at least 50% affordable housing (subject to viability) for housing schemes, necessary infrastructure improvements and the provision of new/improvements to existing publicly accessible local green spaces. ReNew Labour Having already lifted the effective moratorium on new onshore wind applications, the government proposes directing decision-makers to give greater weight to the benefits associated with renewable and low-carbon energy generation in assessing renewable energy schemes, bringing onshore wind projects back into the nationally significant infrastructure project regime and increasing the NSIP threshold for solar development so as to avoid the perceived under-sizing of project capacity. Coinciding with the Paris Olympics, the government’s planning reforms and associated activity possess some of the energy of a Simone Biles triple-twisting-double-backflip; the message is unambiguously pro-growth, pro-housing, pro-infrastructure. This is not a wholesale rebuilding of the nation’s planning architecture (thank goodness), but it has potential. Victoria McKeegan is a partner at Town Legal LLP Image © Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock