National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) was published for consultation in November 2021 and marks a critical stage in the reform of Scotland’s planning system. The progression of NPF4 through to adoption will see it elevated to development plan status, influencing the formulation of local development plans as well as the determination of planning applications.
Its increased scope sees the introduction of development management-style policies which should provide national consistency and avoid duplication in local development plans. It also sees a step change in how local planning authorities plan to meet housing need and demand.
This step change is in the form of the removal of the requirement to maintain a minimum 5 year supply of effective land for housing at all times and a switch to programming a 10 year supply across a plan period.
This is effectively the third significant shift in planning for housing in Scotland in under a year, through a combination of national planning advice, court judgements and now this impending national level development plan document.
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series of blogs in 2021 considered the implications of the change back and forth from using the average and residual or compound methods of calculating the adequacy of the effective housing land supply. The former had been promoted by the Scottish Government through Planning Advice Note 1/2020 (PAN 1/2020) before this document was quashed by the Court of Session. This Insight updates the baseline position utilised in our appraisal of the average and residual methods of appraising the presence or otherwise of a suitable land supply as well as the potential implications of NPF4, if it were to be approved in its current draft form.
NPF4 is now being consulted on until the end of March 2022 and it is now for the development industry, planning practitioners and communities to consider the significant shift that is underway in how we will be planning for housing across Scotland over the next decade and beyond.
