Legal briefing | 23 Dec 2024 |

Driving Home(building) for Christmas? The long-awaited updated NPPF has finally arrived

The Labour Party's manifesto for the 2024 General Election contained an emphasis on the reform of the planning system, with a view to "unlocking" it to promote growth and development. Notably, one of the Government's key commitments was to update the National Planning Policy Framework ("NPPF") within six months of being elected. It is now just over five months since the Labour Government was elected and, as promised, the updated NPPF has been published following an extensive industry consultation – so objective achieved!

What is the NPPF?

The NPPF is the document which sets out the Government's planning policies and governs the formulation of local plans. Crucially, the NPPF is a material consideration in the determination of planning applications, so any changes to the NPPF will have a direct influence on the decision making by local planning authorities ("LPAs"). While the Government have made it a key priority to fix the 'broken' planning system, some fixes are quicker than others. Policy tweaks such as these allow almost immediate interventions in plan-making and decision-taking, while legislative change (which is also on the cards) will take much longer.

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What are the key themes in the changes to the NPPF?

Before we explore some of the more notable specific updates to the NPPF, it is apparent that there are certain themes behind the Government's broader approach to the updates to the NPPF:

Removal of Red Tape

Labour have repeatedly emphasised their desire to 'remove red tape' from the planning system in order to meet their ambitious manifesto commitment of building 1.5 million houses over the next 5 years. Typical examples of 'red tape' in practice include the criteria that developers must meet in order for planning permission to be granted for developments and the pool of land within the country that can potentially be developed upon e.g. as a result of a significant proportion of land being designated and therefore protected as Green Belt.

Beauty now less important

The previous version of the NPPF contained references to "beautiful" buildings and architecture throughout, however almost all references to beauty within the NPPF have now been struck out. At first glance, this may appear to be a backwards step by the Government, however the focus has shifted away from constructing 'beautiful' to 'well-designed' buildings by reference to design codes and guides. Presumably, this is with a view to:

reducing the grounds on which planning applications can be objected to and as 'beauty' is an inherently subjective concept, further limiting the scope of objections to those which are on a more objective basis – there is likely to be a consensus on whether something is well designed, whereas individuals' views on whether something is 'beautiful' or lacks 'beauty' will likely vary greatly; and
reducing costs/barriers for developers as they now only need to ensure that their developments are well-designed rather than well-designed and beautiful.

There are a significant number of detailed changes introduced in the new NPPF. As such, we will focus on those which are particularly notable here, with views on others to follow in due course.

The grey belt

Historically, the availability of suitable land has been a key constraint on development, particularly the delivery of new homes. However, at long last, the new NPPF grapples with the (previously politically toxic) issue of building on Green Belt land. It does this through the introduction of a new category of land ("Grey Belt"), whilst also laying the foundations for more widespread reviews of Green Belt boundaries.

The introduction of Grey Belt land, in particular, has attracted all the attention since being trailed in the consultation draft. The NPPF provides that "For the purposes of plan-making and decision-making, ‘Grey Belt’ is defined as land in the Green Belt comprising previously developed land and/or any other land that, in either case, does not strongly contribute to any of purposes (a), (b), or (d) in paragraph 143. ‘Grey Belt’ excludes land where the application of the policies relating to the areas or assets in footnote 7 (other than Green Belt) would provide a strong reason for refusing or restricting development".

Paragraphs (a), (b) and (d) of paragraph 143 of the NPPF provide for the following purposes of the Green Belt:

143(a) – to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;
143(b) – to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; and
143(d) to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns.

Notably, the purpose of the Green Belt included at paragraph 143(c) of the NPPF "to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment" has not been included as one of the protected purposes within the definition of Grey Belt. Therefore, it is possible for land within the Green Belt that assists in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment to be categorised as Grey Belt.

This might appear quite a radical change at first glance, however much of the Green Belt will also fall under 143(a), (b) and/or (d). If 143(c) was to be permitted as a purpose under the definition of Grey Belt, almost all Green Belt land would be caught, and the concept of Grey Belt would be very limited in scope as it would be restricted to previously developed land within the Grey Belt. The updates to paragraph 148 of the NPPF also make clear that, where it is necessary to release Green Belt land for development, previously developed land is to be prioritised and only then should undeveloped Grey Belt be considered and then other Green Belt locations. Interestingly, the protected purposes of Green Belt within the definition of Grey Belt and the cascade within paragraph 148 indicate a preference for development on what is effectively Green Belt land which is undeveloped and not located near towns/urban areas over Green Belt land which is undeveloped but lies near to already developed areas.

The Government's intention therefore seems to be to preserve the traditional sections of Green Belt which separate towns from other towns rather than protecting large swathes of undeveloped countryside. Whilst it is positive that the Government is seeking to minimise urban sprawl, permitting development in the middle of the countryside away from existing developments and infrastructure will present significant challenges and could affect the viability of developments due to the lack of existing infrastructure in place.

Other interesting amendments for developers and landlords

There are two further areas of change that will be of interest to developers and landlords:

Modernising development

Tweaks to specifically refer to infrastructure for a 'modern' economy – combined with recent examples of direct interventions from the Secretary of State which suggest that these developments are to be prioritised. The NPPF states that LPAs "should pay particular regard to facilitating development to meet the needs of a modern economy, including by identifying suitable locations for uses such as laboratories, gigafactories, data centres, digital infrastructure, freight and logistics... Planning policies and decisions should make provision for new, expanded or upgraded facilities and infrastructure to support the growth of knowledge and data-driven, creative or high technology industries, including data centres and grid connection."

Increasing role for planning in promoting healthy communities

A new paragraph 97 has been added to address hot food takeaways and fast-food outlets. These should be rejected near schools or where 'young people congregate' or where there is evidence that a concentration of such uses is having an adverse impact on local health, pollution or anti-social behaviour. This is quite broad in scope and could impact the high street/shopping centres, potentially making it harder to get planning permission for these unless they are in out-of-town retail parks, for example. As a result of this policy change, it may have just become a lot harder to obtain planning permission for fast food/takeaways in urban areas. Note, in particular, the low bar of simply having an 'adverse impact' on local health, pollution or anti-social-behaviour – it is arguable that almost all businesses of this nature will have an adverse impact on these factors to some degree.

Conclusion

It is too early to tell whether the long-awaited updates to the NPPF will genuinely 'unlock' development and accelerate housebuilding in the manner that the Government hopes, but the updates in respect of the Grey Belt/Green Belt and the updates with a view to expediting development needed for the modern economy are certainly pro-development policies. As the new NPPF took effect from the date of its publication (12 December 2024) for the purposes of decision-making, it is now over to the decisionmakers to interpret and apply the new policies. One thing is for certain: the already under-resourced local planning authorities will resent the challenging timetable presented by this early Christmas present from the Government, as they frantically grapple with its new policies and seek to update their local plans accordingly.

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