COMMENT The new government should be applauded for its speed. Within a month of coming to power, announcements this week on planning reform set the pace for new levels of housing delivery, with a target of 1.5m new homes in the next five years and a focus on affordability.
Changes include, as expected, a focus on housing supply, with the requirement for a strategic approach and use of the standard method. It is anticipated that there will be changes to the standard method that factor in the size of each area and the gap between local house prices and income.
Flexibility built in
In the revised National Planning Policy Framework now out for consultation, brownfield first is maintained but a new, much more flexible approach to green and (now defined) grey belt release is set out, including new guidance on what may no longer be considered inappropriate development. New schemes would need 50% affordable housing with a focus on high quality, sustainability, green space and the delivery of local infrastructure. A new annex on viability in relation to green belt release is included.
Mixed-use sites and variety of ownership and rental tenures are emerging themes around big sites, and the conversation about new towns continues.
A further, notable addition is public service infrastructure: “significant weight should be placed on the importance of new, expanded or upgraded public service infrastructure when considering proposals for development”.
These ambitious targets and the longer-term approach should give the industry more certainty. The requirement to identify sites for a modern economy including data centres, gigafactories, laboratories and digital infrastructure further demonstrate a government focused on progress, despite local challenges of seeing these plans through to fruition.
However, while housing and communities secretary Angela Rayner has encouraged developers to match the government’s pace of reform, there are some as yet untouched areas where more attention is essential for the private sector to respond fully.
As consultation takes place over the next eight weeks and the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill comes forward, we will need to hear more about resolving key issues that are currently holding up the planning system.
There is a clear tension between national policy and the position on the ground. At a local authority level where political control is varied and local democracy comes into play, central government should make clear both the incentives and penalties in ensuring housing needs are fully met and ideally exceeded. Its intention to “introduce a national scheme of delegation that focuses planning committees on the applications that really matter, avoids a potential development being reviewed multiple times even where it’s been included in the local plan, and places more trust in skilled professional planners” must fully address this issue.
Clarity on transitional arrangements is important. Many local plans currently at Regulation 19 or Regulation 22 stage could be out of date immediately on adoption and subject to review.
There will no doubt be comments from across the sector, including from some local planning authorities, the CPRE and other organisations. So a further test will come after September as responses are reviewed and a new, final version is published. How far can the government stay its course?
Resources concern
On top of this – and the main concern we hear from across the industry – is the need for decision-making on planning applications to be properly resourced. An extra 300 planning officers dispersed across the country will not materially improve the system, especially with higher targets in areas of high demand. That is essentially less than one new person for each of England’s 317 local authorities and doesn’t factor in experienced senior people retiring or scaling back. Many more are needed, with the right training, capacity and support. At the same time, councils must be empowered to take and own the hard decisions having fully understood professional officer recommendations.
Adequate resourcing of the Planning Inspectorate and wider statutory consultees is vital too. At present, all of the key consultees, including Natural England, the Environment Agency, National Highways and Planning Inspectorate, are materially under-resourced leading to regular and lengthy delays in planning decision-making.
Many applicants would be happy to fund a well-resourced planning service through the application process with support for its continued objectivity, if it led to speed on the ground.
At a time when government funds are tight, and a structured sell-off of assets and pause on important infrastructure spending will clearly have an impact, it is a practical move well worth considering.
Craig Blatchford is head of planning at Montagu Evans
