Rayner's Reforms to the NPPF

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, has today unveiled a much-anticipated draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) supported by a punchy Written Ministerial Statement (WMS). Together, these documents seek to change the planning system to ‘turbocharge’ growth and deliver 1.5m new homes over the next five years, echoing the commitments made in the Labour Party’s election winning manifesto.

 

The draft NPPF wording confirms the new government’s intention for housing targets to become mandatory and reversing many of the other regressive measures introduced by the Conservative government last December, such as the watering down of five-year housing land supply requirements.

 

In addition to restoring mandatory housing targets, the WMS details that the method used to calculate them (the ‘standard method’) will be revamped, resulting in Councils seeing a rise in the annual total from 300,000 to 370,000. The new method will also incorporate an uplift based on how out of step house prices are with local incomes, which will see Southeast England’s target rise significantly from 51,000 to 69,000.

 

One of the ways the planning system will be used to identify and allocate new sites for housing, and help meet the government’s ambitious new targets, is a shake-up of national policy by re-categorising some Green Belt land to ‘Grey Belt’.   We heard a lot from Labour about the ‘Grey Belt’ in the General Election campaign but now, for the first time, we have a clear definition which is included in the draft NPPF’s glossary:

 

“’Grey Belt is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising Previously Developed Land and any other parcels and/or areas of Green Belt land that make a limited contribution to the five Green Belt purposes (as defined in para 140 of this Framework) but excluding those areas or assets of particular importance listed in footnote 7 of this Framework (other than land designated as Green Belt)”.

 

Local Planning Authorities will need to review and propose alterations to their Green Belt boundaries through their Local Plans to accommodate their identified need for housing, commercial or other development needs, in full, where this cannot be achieved outside of the Green Belt. The only exception is where there is clear evidence that this would fundamentally undermine the function of the Green Belt.   The revised NPPF advises that priority should be given to previously developed land, then undeveloped Grey Belt land in sustainable locations, and only then other sustainable Green Belt locations.

 

However, this may not mean developers will have to wait for Local Planning Authorities to identify and release Grey Belt land through Local Plans updates. In authorities subject to the presumption in favour of sustainable development, development that would utilise Grey Belt land in sustainable locations would not be deemed to be inappropriate, provided it would not fundamentally undermine the strategic function of the Green Belt to prevent sprawl.

 

What could be more challenging for developers is Labour’s much mooted ‘golden rules’ that are embodied in the draft NPPF, setting out that new permissions or site allocations for major development should make the following contributions:

 

1. 50% affordable housing (subject to viability) including an ‘appropriate’ amount of Social Rent;
2. Necessary improvements to local or national infrastructure; and
3. New or improved publicly accessible green spaces.

 

Other key changes contained in the draft NPPF are summarised below:

 

1. There will be no transitional arrangements for decision taking when the new NPPF is adopted. There will be arrangements for plan making depending on (i) stage of plan making; (ii) type of plan; and (iii) whether the plan is meeting need;
2. Local Planning Authorities who adopt new plans under the transitional arrangements will have to begin preparing a new plan that meets housing need in full straight away;
3. Tweaks to the presumption in favour of sustainable development (the ‘tilted balance’) to apply when the policies for the supply of land (as opposed to policies most important for determining the application) are out of date;
4. A change to Green Belt rules around previously developed land by allowing redevelopment of sites that would not cause ‘substantial’ harm to openness (as opposed to ‘no greater impact than existing’);
5. Explicit support for freight and logistics development, laboratories, gigafactories and digital infrastructure;
6. Strengthening the presumption in favour of brownfield development by regarding proposals acceptable in principle;
7. The requirement for delivering a set percentage of ‘First Homes’ on all sites is being removed;
8. Removal of references to ‘beauty’ for new development that was impossible to interpret;
9. The ban of onshore wind has been removed; Great weight to be given to the need to create, expand or alter early years and post 16 facilities, as well as schools; and
10. A range of amendments designed to support climate change adaptation, solar energy and the provision of new water-infrastructure.

 

In principle many of the proposed changes appear positive and clearly address some of the root causes of sluggish economic growth and housing building over the past 14 years, however it remains to be seen how much of this will survive the consultation, which closes at 11:45pm on 24^th September 2024.

 

For any further queries on the draft NPPF amendments, please get in touch.