Back when most people were looking forward to the Christmas break, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) were busy publishing their consultation on reforms to national planning policy[1]. The consultation, closing on 2nd March 2023, wants people’s views on the proposed updates to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) as well as plans to introduce National Development Management Policies (NDMP). These changes will be effective immediately following the completion of the consultation..
The consultation topics range from onshore wind farms to matters of beauty in design. But what, I hear you ask, does it mean for transport planners and development where transport issues are key?
Having read the somewhat lengthy consultation document, I can confirm that transport specific matters are quite limited, though the far-reaching consequences for the planning system in general, will have knock-on impacts on how transport planning currently operates within it.
The consultation document majors on reducing the need to travel as well as increasing sustainable and active transport modes. This is not a new concept and has been a core theme in transport planning for some time.
However, in light of the Government’s Net Zero Strategy, the need for such measures will be given increasing importance, especially in light of the climate emergency. The reforms will better reflect Net Zero and include references to the Government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan, highlighting the importance of integrating planning and transport.
The reform also seeks to densify urban development, making the best possible use of brownfield land. As of 2020, the method for calculating local housing need has changed and a 35% uplift applied to the 20 largest towns and cities in England. This has often been ‘shipped out’ to surrounding areas as opposed to being applied within the towns and cities it was intended for. The reform proposes to rein back on this kind of development creep, acknowledging the important part that population density plays in revitalising streets and making transport initiatives affordable to users and more viable in the long-term.
Local Plans currently tend to contain policies driving housing development towards built-up areas that already benefit from good transport access. The reform now suggests that a national policy within the NDMP to standardise the requirement. with the aim of developing more houses in more connected locations. This would underline development on brownfield land or above shops in town centres.
How this reform will interact with the recent change to housing targets is unclear; some local authorities have wholesale ditched their local plans and started anew, in which case, the reform may preclude certain sites that were previously allocated but bring forward others. In reality, the housing crisis continues, and freezing development in order to wait on unicorn sites isn’t a position most authorities will be able to take with the growing demand for affordable homes.
The change in emphasis will also change the way development deals with transport matters and how transport needs are assessed. The recent adoption by Oxfordshire County Council of the Decide and Provide approach to transport planning (for further details, Click Here to Read our recent article by Bridgit Grant) highlights the growing movement away from the standard Predict and Provide approach, which has historically resulted in excess road building, to the detriment of other modes and the environment. No doubt other Councils will look to adopt this approach moving forward.
No immediate changes are proposed to Chapter 9 ‘Promoting sustainable transport’; however, instead waiting for a more comprehensive review following the publication of wider transport guidance.
You might be thinking, excellent this all seems relatively straight forward; well, there you would be wrong. Whilst there are few new transport concepts, the reform seeks to overhaul the Local Plan process. There are several core themes to the changes proposed:
- Greater weight given to Local Plans - giving communities confidence as to where development will take place and in turn, reducing the opportunity for speculative development outside of the Local Plan;
- No more annual housing land monitoring - Where a Council has an up-to-date Local Plan, the need for them to continually demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply will be negated with historic oversupply now being accounted for;
- Standard Method for housing need no longer mandatory - The standard method for housing need will remain unchanged but it will be outlined as a ‘starting point’ for Councils as opposed to being a mandatory requirement, allowing Councils greater flexibility and acknowledging local constraints, such as Green Belt land where its removal from the Green Belt would be harmful;
- Faster Local Plan Process - Councils will have 30 months to adopt a Local Plan and under new guidance, a Local Plan will only be considered up to date where it has been adopted within the last five years;
- New Design Codes - Councils will also be expected to produce a district-wide design code, with the Plan being supported by an Infrastructure Delivery Strategy; and
- Greater weight given to Neighbourhood Plans - helping to place communities at the heart of the planning process.
The key changes are the greater emphasis on Plan making in the revised NPPF, and the new NDMP document which will provide the overarching national planning guidance. The NDMP will seek to flesh out policies from the NPPF aimed at decision making to reflect changing policy requirements (e.g., Net Zero) fill in policy ‘gaps’.
The NDMP would aid the Local Plan process, as Councils would no longer need to duplicate national policy within their Plan, allowing them to be locally relevant. It will also ensure that national principles are applied in instances where Local Plans are out of date, giving comfort that structure remains within the decision-making process. The reformed planning documentation is demonstrated below:
But perhaps most interesting of all is the change to the ‘presumption in favour’ of sustainable development, which currently dominates the NPPF. The reform acknowledges that this principle can result in additional development on unallocated land. Where an up-to-date Local Plan exists, this principle will be applied less, with greater weight assigned to allocations, reducing speculative development. Councils can also ‘switch off’ the presumption principle where it can be demonstrated that sufficient permissions have been granted to meet their annual housing requirement. This can also be done if no Local Plan is in place. A contingency of 15% is recommended to be applied to ensure sufficient deliverable units to allow for the ‘switch off’ to take place.
This means that the importance of land promotion and site allocation will be paramount. Whilst at present it is not uncommon to support sites through the Local Plan, legalisation will make this the norm and developers will need to be review transport considerations at the earliest stages of the Local Plan process.
This is not necessarily an issue. We are already able to guide on transport matters from the outset of the site’s identification, taking it through to planning with the aim of integrating the necessary transport elements and being able to enact real change through the promotion of good highway design. However, at present it is not unknown for us to come a bit late to the party, where wider constraints have impacted the site layout and its associated transport considerations.
Finally, all parties involved in the planning process will have to commit to working within the new, rather ambitious, timescales imposed on Local Plan adoption and learn to work within the framework that this entails. If the Government wish to see effective and deliverable Local Plans, the evidence base underpinning the Plan will be key to ensure sites can be taken forward through planning successfully. I am sure I am not alone when I say that there have been times where allocations, considered acceptable at the Plan stage, have struggled or even failed at the planning stage. With these new timescales proposed and the need to ensure deliverability, how evidence is presented in support of allocations will no doubt have to be refined.
Henry Ford once said, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. Working in the planning system, there is no doubt in my mind that reforms are required. Whether the changes proposed as part of this consultation will offer the solutions needed, I am sure will be the subject of intense debate for some time to come.
[1] Please see: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/levelling-up-and-regeneration-bill-reforms-to-national-planning-policy/levelling-up-and-regeneration-bill-reforms-to-national-planning-policy#scope-of-consultation
