The Revised NPPF

Following its general election triumph in 2019, the Government promised a radical shake-up of the planning system. However, three Prime Ministers and three Secretaries of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities later – little about the proposed changes to date could be considered ‘radical’. 

This is exemplified in the long-awaited prospectus for revising the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and its proposed approach to preparing National Development Management Policies, which was published on 22 December 2022. 

Far from delivering the 300,000 homes per year target, the proposed national policy changes seem to weaken the link between housing need and housing targets, which will inevitably result in the latter decreasing. 

Proposed changes to the NPPF 

The stated purpose of these proposed changes is to provide more certainty to enable local planning authorities (LPAs) to propose a plan with a housing requirement that is below their local housing need figure. So, in effect, planning for fewer homes. 

The Government’s proposals regarding housing targets, as set out in the draft revisions to the NPPF are:

• Proposed additional caveats would allow for lower levels of housing to be planned in situations in which meeting full needs would result in adverse impacts, such as building at densities significantly out of character with the existing area, or where there is clear evidence of past over-delivery in terms of the number of homes permitted compared to the housing requirement in the existing Local Plan. In such cases this over-delivery may be deducted from the provision required in the new Plan.

• Green Belt boundaries would not be required to be reviewed and altered if this would be the only means of meeting the objectively assessed need for housing over the Plan period. It will be a matter for the individual local planning authority (LPA) as to whether such a review takes place.

• The duty to co-operate would be replaced by a future ‘alignment policy’, and plans will no longer be required to be ‘justified’.

• Where the housing requirement is less than five years old, LPAs would no longer have to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply. 

• Some LPAs with well advanced Local Plans will only need to demonstrate 4 years’ housing land supply instead of 5 years for a period of two years from the point that the proposed changes to the Framework take effect.

No specific changes are proposed to the standard method for calculating housing need yet, but it will be reviewed to take into account the standard method of new household projections data (based on the 2021 Census), which is due to be published in 2024.

Confusing need and housing targets 

Far from radical, these proposals are contradictory. The Government target of 300,000 houses per year remains, but with no pressure on LPAs to commit to targets, there is no conceivable way in which it can be met. 

It appears that housing needs, and the fundamental human right to shelter, are being confused with housing targets. The standard method for assessing local housing need – poorly conceived as it is – is a route to identifying a minimum need figure necessary to prevent a rise in homelessness, rather than a growth aspiration. So when I see ‘need’ and ‘targets’ used interchangeably in Government I am concerned that strategic planning was not fully understood in the drafting of these important documents. 

Meeting housing need – a political choice? 

Gove has been quoted as saying that the Government will consult on the standard method for calculating local housing need and that the derived figure will be an advisory starting point. Failure to meet need is not a failure to meet an aspirational objective: it is a failure to provide for the underprivileged. Providing for need should not be a matter of choice. 

This directly contradicts the current NPPF, which, at para. 35 (a) states that Plans are ‘sound’ if they are ‘Positively prepared – providing a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs.

Under the current planning policy, the failure to meet need in one LPA would put pressure, via the Duty to Cooperate, for neighbouring authorities to do so. And so it is alarming that the revised policy removes the Duty to Cooperate, replacing it with a much weaker ‘alignment policy’.

Paralysis in the planning system 

The impact of the possible removal of housing need figures has already been felt throughout the country. 

South Staffordshire Council has announced a halt to work on its local plan following the Government’s publication of draft changes to the NPPF, as have Horsham, Teignbridge and North Somerset.

Mole Valley in Surrey is apparently proposing to ask the Planning Inspectorate to remove all Green Belt sites from its submitted draft local plan, as is Gedling in Nottinghamshire.

In October the Home Builders Federation wrote to the Office for Budget Responsibility expressing concern that abolishing targets would lead to 100,000 fewer new homes each year, a £17 billion reduction in economic activity and a fall in the funding available for affordable housing of £2.8 billion. Its research demonstrates that, whether the replacement for the standard method is a ‘soft’ target, or simply ceases to exist, the number of new homes delivered would be the lowest since the years following the global financial crisis. 

Lack of encouragement to meet targets

This stalling of strategic planning is inevitable as politically, as well as at a community level, ‘carrot and stick’ comes into play. Without the ‘stick’ of penalties if housing targets are not met, only the ‘carrot’ of planning gain remains, which may be enough to incentivise development in some areas, but not those which put up the most resistance to new homes. In carrying out public consultations – on Local Plan allocations or planning applications – we always face questions about whether new housing is necessary. Currently, mandated targets provided the answer; in the absence of a target, it will be harder to demonstrate housing need, in particular concealed housing need which is one of the greatest societal problems linked to under-supply.

Impact on those most in need

While some may welcome these proposals – perhaps those who voted against the Government in the Chesham and Amersham byelection because of their opposition to the Planning White Paper, or those who lobbied their MPs to force amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill in the autumn – many will lose out. Unfortunately, it will be the more vulnerable, those looking to get on the housing ladder, looking to find a reasonably priced rental property, on waiting lists for affordable housing or in need of other forms of specialist accommodation.

The consequence of this change is that if the homes are not available to occupy by young people and key workers, we risk either perpetuating unsustainable travel patterns or the continued success of those areas, by cutting off the supply of new talent to the local industries.

Those on the waiting lists for social housing or specialist accommodation do not disappear simply because authorities may be allowed to plan for less. 

Strategy must remain in strategic planning 

Both the Government and local authorities’ objectives should be to facilitate, not thwart, the delivery of much-needed homes.

But there is a stark lack of vision or strategy in these proposed changes. And if the changes are driven by electioneering interests, as seems possible, then it is hard to picture how any widescale meaningful benefits to society might be delivered by such short-term impulses.

Furthermore, as large-scale developments continue to become more complex, it is important to recognise that housing provision is not a tap that can be turned on and off quickly. There is a significant danger that the chronic undersupply of housing will continue and indeed worsen within these areas if the proposed changes to the NPPF are implemented. 

Together with most planning and development professionals, I believe the most successful system to date for ensuring housing delivery is that of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), which successfully set and delivered regional housing targets, free of local politics. Regionally-determined targets if adopted today could offer a streamlined approach to strategic planning which sits well with the cost-cutting agenda and could take a similarly efficient approach to meeting net-zero commitments. 

As most planning professionals would agree, strategic planning is crucial to delivery. Failure to plan is to plan to fail. And the only target that is likely to be met by these reforms is the political target of appeasing some local councillors and NIMBYs.