I stumbled upon a recent article on the Planning Resource website regarding the governments drastic reforms to the planning system and its impact on local authorities and in turn communities. It is definitely worth a read.
On the face of it, the government's one year old National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for England seems to offer a fair deal to local planning authorities. Under the framework, the local plans written by the authorities remain the first point of reference for planning decision-makers. Councils that get their plans adopted will continue to be able to set the agenda for development in their area. Only if authorities fail to put an up-to-date plan in place are they likely to find their decisions regularly overturned by inspectors citing the NPPF's presumption in favour of sustainable development.
Yet the NPPF's anniversary has been greeted with
loud complaints from rural conservationists, claiming that it has already led to a loss of local control over planning decisions, bringing in a new era of unplanned greenfield development.
How justified are these complaints? Has the framework already increased the amount of development that is being built against the wishes of the local planning authorities? Will it do so in the future?
Why might the NPPF help applicants get permission against local planning authority wishes?The framework opens up new opportunities for appeal against LPA decisions. If an application is turned down because of conflict with the local plan, there now may be an opportunity for the applicant to argue that the plan has not been brought into line with the NPPF, and hence is "out-of-date", and the presumption in favour of sustainable development should apply.
"Pre NPPF inspectors would inevitably give full weight to the development plan, even if it was dated," says Anthony Aitken, head of planning at consultancy Colliers. "There was still a huge risk in going to appeal. The NPPF's introduction was a game changer".
At the same time, the framework strips away some of the defences that an authority without a local plan might have used to fend off an application that it did not want. "Absence" of a plan can justify permission for a scheme under the presumption in favour of sustainable development. "Councils used to be able to persuade inspectors that their plan was just around the corner," says Robin Tetlow, chairman of consultancy Tetlow King. "That argument was a better card to play then than it is now".
How many local authorities do not have a local plan in place?Research conducted by
Planning last month showed that slightly more than half of English local authorities did not have an adopted local plan. Among English LPAs, 48 per cent had an adopted plan, one per cent had had their plan found sound at examination but not yet adopted, 13 per cent had submitted their plan for examination, 11 per cent had published their plan and 27 per cent had no plan at all.
How long will it take the relevant authorities to put the remaining plans in place?Recent
research suggests that full coverage could be years away. Think-tank the Local Government Information Unit, in a study commissioned by the National Trust and published last month, reported that 13 per cent of English authorities say that they will not have an adopted plan in place for more than 18 months, and 26 per cent say they will not have one in place in a year's time.
The timetable for full plan coverage will be further delayed if authorities hit unexpected problems in adopting local plans. Consultancy GVA has highlighted the fact that several councils have recently struggled to get their plans through inspection. "The burdens placed on councils by the framework have seen a number of plans fail or stall at examination In public stage", it said in its report on the first year of the framework.
How vulnerable are authorities without adopted local plans to unplanned development?The LGIU report said that LPAs without adopted local plans "had already received speculative applications looking to take advantage of these situations".
The most vulnerable are local authorities with no plan at all, or an emerging plan in its very early stages. This is because the NPPF attaches greater weight to an emerging plan as its preparation advances.
Can local planning authorities that have adopted plans be confident that they are safe from unplanned development?They can only be really confident if their plans are demonstrably NPPF-compliant. Although 48 per cent of English local authorities have an adopted plan, recent
Planning research showed that less than seven per cent have plans that can incontrovertibly be said to be NPPF-compliant, in that they have either had a new or revised plan adopted since the NPPF's publication.
Some of the other adopted plans will almost certainly comply with the new framework without revision. According to Tetlow, inspectors are still giving "a fair degree of weight" to recently adopted plans, even if they date from before the publication of the NPPF. However, separate
Planning research carried out in December revealed that nearly half of the councils with plans adopted since 2004 thought they would have to revise them to make them comply with the NPPF. So far, only one has managed to get a revised plan adopted.
In what ways might adopted plans be challenged for not complying with the NPPF?A report on the NPPF's first year by consultancy Savills adds that "the absence of a five year housing supply, and hence an up to date development plan, is the strongest common feature of appeals that have been allowed".
"Pre NPPF, [inspectors] would still give pre-eminence to the development plan, even if you could prove a lack of land supply," says Colliers' Aitken. "But [post-NPPF], if you are a local authority that doesn't have a five year land supply, there's now a big truck coming towards you". He says that he is now telling clients to start preparing applications for greenfield expansion in areas where authorities do not have the five year land supply in place.
Are there reasons why planning authorities might find it harder than before to maintain a five year supply of housing?Yes. For one thing, the framework requires more housing land than before to be identified. Local planning authorities not only need to meet their previous obligation to provide a five year supply of land for housing, they also need to show that they have an additional buffer of five per cent or, if they have a track record of persistent under-delivery of housing, 20 per cent.
For another, the task is made more challenging by the increased onus placed by the NPPF on demonstrating that allocated sites are genuinely viable for development. According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, this is testing local authorities that had included a lot of brownfield land in their five year supply, because brownfield sites are generally more expensive than greenfield to build on. "Inspectors are saying that there is no proof that brownfield sites will be deliverable," says CPRE senior planning campaigner Paul Miner.
How many planning authorities are vulnerable to challenge on the grounds of inadequate housing land supply?A lot, according to
Savills' study. It surveyed 190 authorities in the southern half of England, and concluded that a third do not have enough sites to provide for a five year housing supply. On average, it said, the authorities had a supply of 5.7 years. The report concludes: "Given that the minimum required by the NPPF is 5.25 years, and that the majority of data is prepared and published by the local authorities themselves, this does not represent a healthy position, and it is one which often leaves local authorities open to challenge"
Planning authorities with plans adopted after 2004 were given a year to bring the documents into line with the NPPF. What will be the impact of that deadline expiring?The NPPF said that policies in such plans that conflicted "to a limited degree" with the framework could continue to be given weight for 12 months. Rural conservation campaigners have argued that these transition arrangements should be extended. But the CPRE's Paul Miner admits it is hard to pinpoint evidence of the arrangements being used by planning authorities to shield themselves from unwanted development. Their disappreance is unlikely to lead to any "dramatic change", says Tetlow.
The government has tried to reassure people that the NPPF will not lead to uncontrolled development by pointing out that 70 per cent of councils have now published draft plans, even if less than half have adopted plans. How much force do emerging plans have under the NPPF?They can have some force. The framework tells decision-makers that they can give increasing weight to an emerging plan as its preparation progresses. Other factors that would increase an emerging plan's weight would be evidence that it faces few unresolved objections, and consistency with the framework. Inspectors have recently shown a marked willingness to reject at examination stage plans that they see as non-compliant.
In practice, says Anthony Aitken of Colliers, plans that have been submitted for examination tend to be viewed as having "a high degree of materiality". But emerging plans that have not got that far are less potent.
Inspectors have also become far less likely to throw out an application because it might pre-empt an emerging but as yet unclear plan. "Pre NPPF, government was effectively giving local authorities time to get their plans up to date," says Savills associate director Charles Collins. "Not any more".
Is there evidence of a growth in permissions for unplanned development in the year since the NPPF was published?There is not yet enough data to paint a comprehensive picture, but some indications are beginning to emerge. Savills recently published its
analysis of appeals relating to large housing schemes (50 dwellings or more) that took place in the nine months following the NPPF's publication. This showed that the number of homes in the schemes that were refused permission at appeal in this period was about a quarter of the total number in the schemes that went to appeal. That compared to around half in the nine months before the NPPF came out. The data suggests that more new homes that are part of big schemes are winning permission at appeal than before. "The appetite of developers to go to appeal has certainly increased post NPPF," says Charles Collins, associate director at Savills.
Research by consultancy Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners (NLP) shows that the proportion of retail appeals as a whole allowed has so far remained more or less unchanged since the NPPF was published. But the success rate at appeal for large out of centre food stores has gone up, from 22 per cent in the 15 months before the NPPF was published to 33 per cent in the 11 months after.
The apparent rise of successful appeals, in some fields at least, comes alongside a rise in local authority plan-making since the NPPF came out. This time last year, 44 per cent of English local planning authorities had plans that were published, submitted for examination, found sound or adopted. Now the figure has risen to
73 per cent. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the rate at which local plans are getting adopted has not changed.
Nonetheless, it is clear that local auhorities are racing to get local plans in place. But the appeal statistics suggest that, despite their best efforts, developers and landowners believe that in many places their prospects of success at appeal remain high.
The Thornton Relief Road will be a huge boost to Sefton's economy, the borough's Labour leader and Sefton Central's Labour MP both said today.
