Pro-development plan needs tightening up

Richard Garlick, Editor of Planning magazine, mulls the clarity of the leaked draft National Planning Policy Framework and suggests that a tighter - albeit longer - document would be preferable.

Over the last few days we have been poring over a leaked draft of the national planning policy framework. The first thing to emphasise about this document is that it is a draft. The Department for Communities and Local Government will not comment on the leak, so we have no way of knowing how close it is to the document that ministers intend to publish for consultation later this month. Nonetheless, given the amount of curiosity and confusion that the proposed framework has inspired since it was announced, even the chance to study an early version of the document is very welcome.

The document is close to 60 pages in length, so is perhaps not quite as concise a statement of policy as ministers originally hoped for. Still, if the published version is of the same size, it will still represent a colossal compression of the existing library of planning policy documents.

Several commentators have noted that it very clearly builds on the document published by the independent Practitioners Advisory Group, who were invited by the Government to set out their own ideas of how the framework should look. If you have read that document, it seems that you already have a good idea of the direction in which the Government is going. It is, as they have always said would be, a direction that is extremely pro-development.

Among many other things, this latest document reveals that the Government is considering not only requiring planning authorities to ensure a rolling five-year supply of deliverable land for housing, but also making them find an extra 20 per cent "to ensure choice and competition in the market for land".

It reiterates that all proposals should be approved "wherever possible", unless "the adverse impacts of allowing development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits". As we have said before, this is a high bar for objectors to jump, particularly as financing the assembly of evidence may be harder for them than for applicants.

It also places a heavy onus on planning authorities to make development viable in their areas. Planners are warned off applying obligations and other "policy burdens" related to matters such as affordable housing or infrastructure contributions if they would make it hard for the developer to generate "acceptable" returns.

One of the most pressing questions about the framework, circulating ever since it was first mooted, is whether such a condensed document would give a clear enough steer on what kind of development is or is not acceptable.

Our impression is that, in its current form at least, it struggles to do that. It often feels loose, as if ministers want to tip their hats in the direction of long-held planning priorities such as town centres, public transport and sustainable development without really committing themselves. On many issues, the current draft leaves plenty of room for legal argument. To give business the planning clarity it says it wants, the Government needs to tighten it up, even if that means more pages.