Interpretation and Application of the Requirement to Review Local Plan Policies Every Five Years
The absence of up-to-date plans is the antithesis of how a plan-led system should operate and yet a large proportion of local authorities have plans that are now out-of-date. The NPPF requirement to review plans every five years is intended to address this, but how effective is it in action? We take a look at how five-year reviews have been played out in different local authorities across England.
Our research has focused on local authorities which adopted local plans containing strategic policies in the 2016/17 and 2017/18 monitoring years, but did not identify specific policy, political or locational trends for local plan reviews. It is important to recognise that the effectiveness of the local plan review tool is hampered by the inability of a significant number of local planning authorities to get plans adopted in a timely manner in the first instance. The review mechanism only affects the most proactive authorities that can get up to date plans in place.
Drawing the analysis together, we would, however, set out the following three key findings:
- The current requirement to review local plans within five years is ineffective at ensuring local plans are kept up to date
- There has been a lack of clear guidance on what authorities must consider when undertaking their review
- The roll-out of the plan-making reforms is inadvertently delaying plan updates and undermining the review process
