The draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2024 consultation and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG’s) questions have been reviewed by ONH from a specific neighbourhood planning perspective. This analysis identified six matters we consider will have the most impact on the future of local community engagement with plan-led development.
In this open consultation response, ONH considers only the consequences of implementing each proposed change. It also considers how these changes could be modified to continue the strong community engagement with plan-led development that neighbourhood planning epitomises. This means that no value judgement has been attached to particular policies (including the introduction of grey belt or the changes to the standard method).
NPPF §14
"Do you agree that §14 should remain unaltered?” was not a question asked in Chapter 6. However, this paragraph, introduced after many years of lobbying by the neighbourhood planning sector, is one of the very few NPPF 2023 modifications that have survived intact. Not surprisingly, the developer lobby has been vocal in seeking either its removal entirely from the final version, or at least a return to the NPPF 2018 version.
MHCLG should be under no illusions how important §14 is to the future of neighbourhood planning. Although too many communities with made plans have been frustrated by the unwillingness of their Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to properly engage its provisions, it has provided a vital sign of confidence from Government that their efforts to bring forward positive, housing land-allocating plans, will not go unrewarded.
The previous version of the paragraph forced too many communities to have to carry out almost constant neighbourhood planning activity to retain the currency of their made plans. And even then, the inability of their LPA to meet the lower three-year housing land supply and/or housing delivery tests could undermine them. As plan reviews qualified for help from MHCLG’s Neighbourhood Plan Support Programme, this also resulted in a scarce but essential resource being depleted more quickly than it needed to be.
We estimate that approx. one third of made plans allocate housing land. Another third do not allocate because the plan area is too constrained to warrant anything more than windfall-type infill (e.g. Green Belt, National Park, lowest tier settlements). The other third do not allocate because the LPA has an up-to-date Local Plan with sufficient non-strategic allocations to meet local housing need or is preparing a new plan with that intention and is unwilling to delegate that role to neighbourhood plans.
Central to the developer lobby case against the new §14 is that it prevents sustainable development for up to five years in made plan areas no matter how low the LPA’s housing land supply position. It implies that most made plans have made inadequate provision for housing land and so should be allowed to be over-ridden by the tilted balance. The case makes no acknowledgment of the effect on neighbourhood planning of removing or revising §14, despite the lobby saying that it continues to believe in the plan-led system.
We would argue that in too many LPA areas over the last five years, neighbourhood plans have been the only contributors to maintaining the value of the plan-led system. Those that have allocated housing land have withstood the technical scrutiny of independent examination and the political scrutiny of the local electorate. To get that far, plans have had to overcome many procedural and other obstacles, most especially in convincing what is often a silent majority that housing development can be a good thing for their communities. That job is made far harder when there is little or no strategic direction given by the LPA (see issue 4 below).
Neighbourhood plans will not pass their examinations if they are perceived to be under-providing housing land but want to impose settlement boundary-type caps on development and secure the full ‘protection’ of §14. We say ‘protection’ because that is the term used to portray the effect of the paragraph. But of course, it does not remove the tilted balance, it simply re-tilts it back to the S38(6) position and an LPA may judge other material considerations to justify a departure from the plan.
Instead, made plans will have carefully scrutinised and assessed the sites available – almost always using a mandatory, objective strategic environmental assessment – to arrive at the optimum outcome of housing supply that meets an actual or notional ‘target’ and that fits with the supporting infrastructure and environmental constraints. We are mindful of the 2015 MHCLG research on how neighbourhood plan housing supply performance tends to exceed targets and we have seen nothing since to suggest any decline in that performance; if anything it may even be higher.
It is illogical that the one part of the plan-led system that has been doing the job of allocating land for housing well in the last five years, despite all the problems, is one that should be undermined by speculative applications for reasons well beyond the control of the community plan maker. Invariably, developers will fail to secure an allocation because they have chosen to promote a site that does not compare well enough against the reasonable alternatives. This is a sign of the plan-led system working as it should and communities that have made this effort, having secured the validation of an independent examiner, should not be penalised if the Government is serious in seeing neighbourhood plans as part of the future of the system.
That all said, there is no doubt that with §14 retained, LPAs need guidance to encourage and enable them to provide a §68 ‘indicative housing figure’ so they can engage §14 in later decision making with confidence. Most struggle to do so in a timely way as they are unwilling to commit to figures before their Regulation 19 Local Plans are published, at which point they provide a §67 ‘housing requirement’, most often without prior discussion with qualifying bodies. This issue needs to be addressed in readiness for the new 30 month Local Plan process, but ideally should be grappled with now, especially given the relatively high proportion of allocated, small housing sites that neighbourhood plans are responsible for.
Public Service Infrastructure
Question 67 asks: “Do you agree with the changes proposed to §100 (we think it means new §98) of the existing NPPF?” which adds the sentence, “Significant weight should be placed on the importance of new, expanded or upgraded public service infrastructure when considering proposals for development.”
There is arguably no greater example of the difference in approach to site assessment and allocation between neighbourhood plans and Local Plans than in how they tackle the planning for the delivery of local supporting infrastructure capacity and/or quality, whether publicly or privately owned and operated. In our experience, the opportunity for new housing development to deliver such a change will often be the most critical factor in site allocation decisions.
Local communities as plan makers can have a degree of leverage over land interests in making their site allocation choices. They are able to blend the technical site assessment data with community preferences and they are able to have a much sharper focus on, and intelligence of, how their areas and their local infrastructure function than is possible within the resource constraints of most LPAs.
There are countless examples of how made neighbourhood plans have secured infrastructure improvements through subsequent planning applications, e.g. community facilities, footpaths, green spaces, nurseries, car parks. However, we have experience of LPAs struggling to support this approach, seeing housing site allocations only being driven by meeting local housing need.
We therefore agree that the NPPF should be modified in this way but it should not be confined to decision making. The paragraph should be modified again to say, “… by plan makers when considering allocating land for development and in determining proposals for development.”
The Grey Belt
Question 23 asks: “Do you agree with our proposed definition of grey belt land? If not, what changes would you recommend?
Since 2012 the NPPF has identified proposals coming forward through neighbourhood development orders as ‘not inappropriate development in the Green Belt’ (current §154f). And since NPPF 2018, national policy has allowed for neighbourhood plans to modify Green Belt boundaries where an adopted Local Plan has provided a strategic policy ‘hook’ (current §144). To our knowledge, very few Local Plans have done so, but some have, including the Runnymede Local Plan in Surrey, which was followed by the made Thorpe Neighbourhood Plan with a policy modifying a Green Belt boundary to allocate land for housing development. The principle of a local community striking a balance between Green Belt and other planning policy objectives is therefore well-established.
We know of many communities in settlements that are either washed over or inset from the Green Belt that have wanted to allocate (via a Plan) or promote (via an Order) land for housing development for a number of reasons. All have been prevented from doing so on the basis that there is no scope for non-strategic policy or proposals of that kind to operate in the Green Belt, per the basic conditions for having regard to national policy and being in general conformity with the strategic policies of the development plan.
Whilst that will no doubt remain a frustration for some, it may be that some communities would be keen to plan for development in what they consider to be grey belt locations. The identification of grey belt land will inevitably relate to much smaller parcels of land on the edge of settlements than those larger parcels that have been used in Green Belt review studies to date. It would not be an onerous task for communities to include in their site assessment process a judgement on whether or not the land ‘performs strongly against any Green Belt purpose’ using data already published by the LPA. As with all other site assessment judgements, this would be subject to an examination and a referendum.
With the above precedents and that practicality in mind, we therefore suggest that either the new glossary makes it clear that ‘plan making’ includes neighbourhood plans or that there is an additional criterion: “Land which makes a limited contribution to the Green Belt purposes will … (Bv) Land which is allocated in a made neighbourhood plan”.
The following two sections of our NPPF response (Small Sites; Design Guides and Codes) have been co-authored with our friend, Katie Lea, Director of Place Studio Ltd.
Small Sites
Question 58 asks: “Do you have views on why insufficient small sites are being allocated, and on ways in which the small site policy in the NPPF should be strengthened?”.
As we know and others have found, when neighbourhood plan groups do their Call for Sites (if they do), this can often produce sites not submitted during the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) process, and many will be ’small’. And, more often than not, small sites are preferred by local people and that would also support the NPPF ambition to find sites for small local builders (as in the paper).
Our experience shows that planning applications for sites allocated in neighbourhood plans tend to be submitted quickly after plans are made (as the pre-application processes tends to run more smoothly); are quicker for the LPA to determine (as there are far fewer community objections); and have a higher approval rate than for non-allocated sites. It is unfortunate that this has never been independently researched and so we have to rely on our knowledge.
With the general pressure to find sites, exacerbated by the increase in targets in the more non-large urban areas where most neighbourhood plans are developed, the NPPF could encourage these groups more directly to address housing targets and find 'small' sites.
Design Guides and Codes
Question 59 asks: “Do you agree with the proposals to retain references to well-designed buildings and places, but remove references to ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ and to amend paragraph 138 of the existing Framework?”
Three points should be made. Firstly, the text related to this refers to "local design guides and codes, prepared in line with the national guidance … (as) … the primary means of assessing and improving the design of development”. Most neighbourhood plans include useful and constructive design and character evidence and policy.
The NPPF should emphasise this more and encourage neighbourhood plan groups to develop statements, guides, codes or whatever. ‘Requiring' local guides may be a step too far but this is often what urban groups are most interested in so that might encourage more urban neighbourhood plans.
Secondly, there is a fundamental tension in the current NPPF and §10-§12 of the consultation and its Q4 and Q5 refer to the Secretary of State’s (SoS’s) letter to LPAs in December 2023 arguing for the need to keep a balance between density and character. The suggestion is that this balance can be ignored and raising densities should be the priority. This will go heavily against what is almost certain to emerge from local design codes about defining, celebrating and respecting the local character - and that is what local people want and community engagement is absolutely central to the National Model Design Code at all levels.
This needs to be resolved. Raising densities is to be supported in principle (and can be done sensitively and in line with local historic character which is often quite dense) but it cannot be an absolute priority or local people will regard this as yet more top-down imposition. The NPPF needs to be more balanced on the character and density issue.
Thirdly, §12 of the consultation states, “Rather than district-wide design coding, we want to focus local planning authority efforts on the preparation of localised design codes …”, although this is not clear in the proposed modifications to new NPPF §135. We would support a shift to genuine localised design guidance and coding at the sub-district level. We are aware that the piloting of district-wide codes has shown they are caught between two stools: they are not sufficiently detailed to be meaningful at a neighbourhood (plan) level but have added little value to the National Model Design Code.
There is a long history of communities producing design guidance at the local level to a high enough standard to help in determining planning applications. The availability of funding and technical support for those preparing neighbourhood plans over the last six years has significantly bolstered coverage and quality. Most communities are very keen to articulate their pride in, and knowledge of, their local areas through design guidance, not just to keep things the way they are now, but also to encourage positive innovation and change where appropriate to the context.
Few LPAs have the internal resources or small enough geography to produce local guidance and codes. Almost none have even been able to keep their conservation area appraisals up to date in recent years. Local communities are a huge, mostly untapped resource to fill this gap, needing only the National Model Design Code and continued access to some hand-holding support from design professionals.
We therefore suggest the following further modifications:
· §129: “Design policies should be developed with or by local communities so they reflect local aspirations …”
· §130: “… all local planning authorities should prepare, and encourage the preparation by communities and land interests of, design guides or codes
· §131: “Design guides and codes can be prepared at an area-wide a neighbourhood or site-specific scale and to carry weight in decision-making should be produced either as part of a local or neighbourhood plan or as supplementary planning documents.”
What next?
The Future of Neighbourhood Planning
Chapter 12 and the remainder of the consultation are silent about neighbourhood planning. We do not know if this is because the new Government has been persuaded of its value to the system and needs say nothing more, but the silence is disconcerting nonetheless.
The Government has indicated it intends to implement other parts of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) 2023, which sought to secure a positive future for neighbourhood plans, especially those allocating housing land. The proposed change to the basic conditions is sensible and will encourage more plans to allocate housing land. The provisions for Neighbourhood Priorities Statements will also provide non-parished and some other communities with another valuable tool to help shape local plan making.
But this 12 year old initiative is in need of a refresh and the new Government and a new NPPF and Local Plan making system are the right time to act. Some of the original and updated provisions have not aged well and have hindered rather than helped in practice.
Its launch sowed the seeds of neglect by most LPAs and of those in the planning profession’s public and private sectors. But we believe we have seen enough across a number of the best LPAs to be optimistic that it can play a valuable role in squaring the circle of securing majority community support in planning for growth.
It does not require radical legislative change nor any uplift in the funding of the support programme, which has been vital to success over the last 10 years, and which represents a tiny fraction of MHCLG’s planning budget. That investment saves most LPAs a very significant staff resource – we estimate that in the hotspots across the country, plans have saved thousands of officer hours and consultant budgets on site assessments, housing needs assessments, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), design coding, character appraisals, green space reviews, local heritage asset identification, green infrastructure planning and community engagement on all of them.
The sharpest LPAs have learned to deploy their scarce resources on the small number of most valuable supporting tasks so that their obligations can be managed well within their available budgets. The processes for integrating SEA and Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) into plan making are well-embedded. There is a very healthy market for consulting services to support communities in every English region. And peer to peer support networks of qualifying body teams have emerged across the country to share their experiences and good practice.
That is not to say that some parts of the system do not need attention and a reboot – they do. And it remains the most misunderstood and poorly researched and overseen part of the planning system by some considerable distance. We would therefore recommend that MHCLG brings together advocates like Locality and the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) with the likes of the Planning Advisory Service (PAS)/Local Government Association (LGA) and practitioners to discuss its future alongside the other changes to the system over the next year.
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