Planning matters

The headline figure from Labour’s manifesto of building 1.5 million new homes in five years is now a well reported ambition of Government, in order to “recapture the dream of homeownership [and to] support families and communities[1]”.

To achieve this, a fundamental part of the solution lies in the planning system, and specifically, robust and up-to-date Local Plans to help guide enough of the right type of housing in the right places. As part of the Local Plan process and seeking to deliver 1.5 million new homes, Government has proposed a new Standard Method (SM) for calculating how many homes should be built in each local authority area[2].

A core component of achieving the delivery of the required new homes is ensuring an up-to-date Local Plan and identifying sufficient sites to deliver a minimum of five years’ worth of housing. Paragraph 76 of the NPPF: Draft Text for Consultation sets out that Local Planning Authorities should:

“…identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of five years’ worth of housing⁴² against their housing requirement set out in adopted strategic policies, or against their local housing need where the strategic policies are more than five years old⁴³.”

Critically, Footnote 43 includes the following caveat:

“…unless these strategic policies have been reviewed and found not to require updating. Where local housing need is used as the basis for assessing whether a five year supply of specific deliverable sites exists, it should be calculated using the standard method set out in national planning guidance.” (Emphasis added)

This is critical because, whilst footnote 18 of the NPPF emphasises that “reviews at least every five years are a legal requirement for all local plans...” there is almost no detail on the process or requirements for a review of strategic policies. Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) [3] sets out what authorities can consider when determining whether a Plan should be updated, not what they must It also affirms that “A local planning authority can review specific policies on an individual basis. Updates to the plan or certain policies within it must follow the plan-making procedure; including preparation, publication, and examination by the Planning Inspectorate on behalf of the Secretary of State.” (Paragraph: 069 Reference ID: 61-069-20190723 Revision date: 23 07 2019). However, the missing piece in the guidance is how a decision by a local planning authority not to update policies, following their internal review, is scrutinised.

Local Plans, rightly so, are evidence based and scrutinised through a public consultation process followed by an independent examination before being formally adopted. Indeed, NPPF paragraph 31 states that: “The preparation and review of all policies should be underpinned by relevant and up-to-date evidence…” and paragraph 35 affirms that “Local plans and spatial development strategies are examined to assess whether they have been prepared in accordance with legal and procedural requirements, and whether they are sound.” Yet the limited guidance and detail as to what a review of the strategic policies should include, and lack of scrutiny, leaves the process entirely up to the local authority, officers and members whose Plan is being scrutinised.

Whilst some LAs may utilise the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) Local Plan Route Mapper Toolkit from 2021 this is not mandatory and not all do or will.

Consequently, this could lead to scenarios, as seen in the North East, whereby an authority is failing to deliver against its identified housing requirement and the NPPF / Housing Delivery Target mandates that a review is undertaken. However, the review concludes that no significant action needs to be taken.

An example includes North Tyneside Council who acknowledged that “in relation to housing supply the Local Plan is not up to date” but ultimately concluded that “its Local Plan remains a sound Local Plan and does not propose to undertake further work to update its Local Plan at this time[4].”

Another example is Gateshead Council who acknowledged “slower than expected delivery” yet concluded in the review of the Plan that “an update of the [plan] or any of its component policies is not required at this time[5].” Whilst the authority did produce an Action Plan, the situation has worsened and the Council’s current published position which is (at March 2023) that it has a 3.4 year supply of housing.

This in turn leads to continued under delivery of housing against the identified housing requirement for a further five years with limited scope for intervention from Government; at the end of the period this could lead to a decade’s worth of under delivery of much needed housing. It is however notable that Chapter 10 of the recent consultation on proposed reforms to the NPPF sought views on whether to update the local plan intervention policy.

It is often the case with changes to guidance, such as the current consultation on the NPPF, that there is detailed scrutiny of the interpretation of words, sentences and punctuation and this can be a lengthy process. In this case some basic guidelines could be referenced in the NPPF then set out in PPG. Whilst even a simplified consultation, review and examination process would inevitably require more LPA and PINS resource, we consider the benefits it would bring in terms of housing delivery would represent good value for money.

It will be interesting to see whether this issue is addressed through the recent responses to the NPPF consultation and whether changes will require public consultation and independent examination when reviewing a Local Plan.