What changes are Labour proposing to the National Planning Policy Framework?

Labour has set out its proposals to introduce a series of planning reforms via changes to a key planning policy document called the National Planning Policy Framework (‘NPPF’). The eight-week consultation will see stakeholders consider a range of reforms and proposals as part of the Government’s efforts to overhaul the planning system.

The need to create a faster and more effective planning system has long been recognised so there is nothing ‘new’ about the Government’s stated aim to unlock the planning system. Participants in the system have been subjected to an almost constant tide of legislative and policy reforms over the past two decades, and yet the fundamental problems still linger.

What is Labour proposing?

Labour’s new proposals include:

• Mandatory local housing targets which marks a return to a policy that was recently abandoned under the last Conservative Government.
• A pledge to build 370,000 homes a year during the course of the next parliament.
• Changes to the method used to calculate local housing need to better reflect housing demand.
• The promotion of ‘brownfield first’ development.
• Identification of ‘grey belt land’ within the green belt that will be promoted for development.

Labour has also announced plans to build on the green belt subject to its ‘golden rules’. Doubtless this will spur a lot of hostile debate within local communities, but it will be broadly welcomed in industry quarters as an eminently sensible policy objective which is vital and necessary to planning effectively for housing demand, especially given the difficulties posed by other significant environmental constraints in the system.

In its first few days in Government, Labour made a small tweak to the NPPF to lift the effective ban on on-shore wind turbines which had been introduced in 2015. This will now be followed by a new policy to promote more renewable energy projects.

Regardless of these policy changes, the planning system is beset by structural problems that will need to be fixed – for example, understaffed local authority planning departments, construction industry shortages and lack of grid capacity – before the objectives of Labour’s pro-development agenda can be fully realised.

The consultation closes on Tuesday 24 September.

If you have questions about the planning proposals, please contact Ben Garbett.