To help deliver their ambitious target of 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, the Government has released the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which sets out the planning policies for England and how these are expected to be applied locally. The amendments includes clarification around the use of housing targets in the context of planning decisions and the Green Belt.
The revisions stipulate that there will be immediate new mandatory housing targets for councils, which will also be required to adopt up-to-date local plans. Targets will be needs-based, so councils with the highest levels of housing unaffordability and greatest potential for growth will have to build the most houses. Apart from London which has a reduced requirement, all regions will have their targets increased substantially compared to the targets set under the Conservative government. The Times reported that more than 100 councils will have to more than double housebuilding, with some having to increase it fivefold or more.
Councils must commit to timetables for the new plans, within 12 weeks of the updated NPPF or ministers will use intervention powers to ensure plans are put in place.
Building on Greenbelt?
A “common-sense approach” will be introduced to the greenbelt. Although “brownfield-first” will remain in place, councils must review their greenbelt boundaries to meet their targets, including the identification and prioritisation of lower-quality “grey belt” land.
In its revised NPPF, the government sets out a clearer definition, which explains that grey belt land is “land which does not strongly contribute to green belt purposes”. Any development decisions must meet new ‘golden rules’ of priorities: brownfield first; grey belt second; affordable homes; public services and infrastructure; and improvements to green spaces. A stronger definition of grey belt will likely be seen as a victory for developers, as it is expected to result in fewer legal challenges against housebuilding plans.
Roger Mortlock, Chief Executive of Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said: “We welcome the commitment to local plans and affordable homes. However, local authorities responsible for delivering new homes will be swamped with speculative applications on high-quality Green Belt and farmland. Inevitably, many of these will be approved to meet nationally imposed targets. The ‘grey belt’ policy needs to be much more clearly defined and exclude working farms. It will undermine the Green Belt, one of this country’s most successful spatial protections with huge potential to help address the climate and nature emergencies. There’s some hope ahead with plans for a strategy that covers all our use of land. Longer-term commitments to build genuinely affordable and better designed homes are welcome too. Until then, our countryside will remain needlessly under threat.”
Councils and developers will be required to include more social rented accommodation when building new developments, with local authorities granted greater powers to build “genuinely affordable” new homes. Not all of the homes built on green belt would have to be affordable housing, but NPPF states that this has to be a priority, in that “a 50% affordable housing contribution should apply by default” if there is no “pre existing requirement”.
The final version of the NPPF also gives extra weight to climate change and net zero in the planning process. Paragraph 163 states: “The need to mitigate and adapt to climate change should also be considered in preparing and assessing planning applications, taking into account the full range of potential climate change impacts.” This could include providing whole-life carbon assessments for projects, covering operational and embodied carbon emissions.
Cllr Richard Clewer, County Council Network Spokesperson for Housing & Planning said: “Currently over a million homes with planning consent have yet to be built out. In my own council over half of the homes we’ve approved over the past eight years have yet to be built. Urgent Government action is required to address the issues of stalled sites and land banking by developers. Councils need to be empowered to ensure we’re actually delivering 1.5 million new homes rather than merely 1.5 million planning consents which do little to ease the housing crisis.”
Separate from the NPPF, the Government also announced that it is looking into expediting the development of brownfield land in urban areas through so called, “brownfield passports” of which more details are to be provided next year.