A Department for Communities and Local Government committee has recommended detailed amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework.
The CLG’s 35 proposals include:
• councils should have a statutory duty to produce and maintain local plans;
• the impact of starter homes should be monitored within affordable housing definitions once the 20% discount expires;
• more clarity is needed for defining brownfield sites and for showing how cost barriers to development will be overcome;
• green belt boundary review guidelines should be issued to local authorities; and
• more detail is needed on how government will intervene if the plans are not in place by early 2017 – 17% of councils have not published local plans and 44% have not adopted local plans.
The recommendations are likely to come to fruition via a variety of legislation, including the Housing and Planning Bill. The proposals are a culmination of a consultation on changes to the framework which closed in January.
The original parameters of the consultation considered a “housing delivery test” for councils, widening the definition of affordable housing to include starter homes and relaxing planning rules for housebuilding on brownfield and green belt land.
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