In early August, to much fanfare and the promise of "radical reform", the government published the "Planning for the Future" White Paper, setting out its route map to overhaul the planning system in England. The stated aims are laudable – who doesn't want a "simpler, faster and more predictable system"? But have the key proposals really delivered all that they promised?
The White Paper is far-reaching and the proposed reforms will have an impact on the entire current planning system – from the beginning of the plan-making stage until development is underway. This doesn’t, though, mean that there aren’t some significant gaps around how key elements of the proposals would work and important questions remain unanswered.
In this series of bulletins we aim to decipher and analyse each of the key proposals put forward before the deadline of 29 October for the submission of consultation responses, starting with those in "Pillar One – Planning for development".
What is the government proposing to do?
Land designations:
A "zonal" system is proposed through new local plans that will place all land into one of three categories. Each of these will have its own process for securing automatic and/or express planning permission for development:
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Growth areas – areas that are "suitable for substantial development". These will include "big ticket" items, such as new settlements, and urban extensions and regeneration. The local plan will specify uses suitable for these areas (which could be as broad or as narrow as desired), set out development parameters (e.g. limits on height, density and scale), and automatically grant outline planning permission for these types of developments. Further details would be secured at a later, detailed stage through: a reformed reserved matters process; a local development order (which essentially grants permitted development rights for certain developments); or, for large sites, a development consent order (which is a statutory instrument that grants planning permission). |
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Renewal areas – areas that are "suitable for development", e.g. gentle densification (seemingly a favourite phrase of the current administration), town centres and some rural areas. For developments identified in local plans, permission would either be granted automatically, through a more streamlined application process, or through a local or neighbourhood development order. There would also be a stronger presumption in favour of sustainable development for these areas. Local Planning Authorities ("LPAs") will, therefore, need to have a very good reason to refuse permission if the development accords with the local plan. But, on the flip side, it will be a tougher test for developers to overcome if they wish to deviate from the plan. |
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Protected areas – areas that justify more stringent development controls because of their environmental and/or cultural characteristics. These would include heritage assets, the green belt (this will be disappointing to some who had hoped the government would undertake a full scale review of the green belt), and conservation areas. A full planning application will be needed to develop these areas. |
Design codes:
It's proposed that LPAs and neighbourhoods will produce design codes and guides which will work in conjunction with the designations in the local plan. These will provide more of the detail for acceptable development, and it should speed up the planning process with the design agreed upfront rather than at the detail stage – both of these should make the automatic outline permissions more valuable. It may also even be an opportunity to help meet environmental targets through design. But there's a risk that these "pattern books" could remove innovation from the planning system and result in identical neighbourhoods across the board. See our next bulletin on "Pillar Two – Planning for beautiful and sustainable places" for further details on this.
New framework for local plans:
There are clearly failings in the current system for adopting local plans which can have significant implications for a plan-led planning system. The proposals, therefore, include measures to ensure speedier adoption and more user-friendly local plans. In particular:
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Local plans will be subject to a statutory "sustainable development" test, instead of the current test of soundness. This is apparently a well-understood term – but is it really? It'll be interesting to see how this will work in practice. |
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The legal duty to co-operate (which requires LPAs to engage with neighbouring authorities on strategic cross-boundary issues) will also be removed. This will be music to the ears of many LPAs. But, as our country doesn't neatly divide along authority boundaries, key cross-boundary issues such as securing necessary infrastructure and the distribution of housing will still need to be dealt with and the paper is completely silent on this. |
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The sustainability appraisal system will be replaced by a simplified process for assessing the environmental impact of local plans. More detail on this is ultimately needed, because while a simpler process is definitely welcomed, as there's less scope for scrutiny of environmental impacts at the detail stage, it will be critical to assess local plans. |
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Development management policies will be removed from local plans and incorporated within the National Planning Policy Framework. Local plans will then focus on site or area-specific requirements. This will help streamline local plans, but it does contradict the government's campaign against top-down rule and it risks clashing with local circumstances. |
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There will be a statutory duty to produce the local plan within 30 or 42 months, depending on the status of the LPA's current local plan. This is a welcome move as up-to-date plans are needed to ensure the planning process is as efficient as possible, but the duty will be a massive burden for the Planning Inspectorate. |
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The plan-making process will also follow five key stages. The first of these will involve a "call for" suggestions for areas under the three categories above. The public will also be able to comment on the plan at stages three and four, when the local plan is at examination – although there's a risk that the examination could turn into a battleground between objectors and the LPA about individual sites. However, this doesn't seem to give the LPA an opportunity to respond to comments made until the examination hearing, assuming there is one, as this is at the inspector's discretion. This means that any good points raised may not be addressed and accommodated by the LPA in the plan. |
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Finally, sanctions will be imposed on LPAs if they fail to put a plan in place within the requisite timescale or keep it up-to-date. It isn't clear what these sanctions will be, but it will need to be more than simply intervention by the Secretary of State which hasn't had much bite to date. |
New binding housing figures:
Housing will be an important factor for an LPA when determining how much of its administrative area will fall into each of the Growth, Renewal and Protected areas, and the government is proposing a significant overhaul of this. The current five year housing land supply requirement will be scrapped. This will be replaced with a binding figure established by a new standard methodology and distributed by the national government to each LPA. Various constraints will be taken into account when allocating an LPA's figure.
Streamlining of planning applications:
The following measures are proposed to make the planning application process quicker and easier to navigate:
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The current statutory determination periods will become fixed, with no option to extend them by agreement. At first glance this sounds great – surely you'll get your planning permission quicker? But there's a risk that if an LPA doesn't think it'll be able to determine the application in time, it will simply refuse it. |
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Planning applications will be shorter and more standardised, with only a 50 page planning statement, but the government also acknowledges that technical supporting information (e.g. on highway impacts, flood risk and heritage matters) may still be needed. And what about design and access statements? The government's message isn't clear and, for large scale developments, it isn't feasible or appropriate to address all of the considerations in a short planning statement. |
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There will also be standard national conditions to cover common issues. This sounds good, but what happens if there's a conflict between what's deemed appropriate at the national level and local circumstances? Will there be any scope for an LPA to tweak these national conditions? |
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Planning decisions for developments established in local plans will be delegated to officers. Some argue that this will reduce democratic accountability. But this will ensure that planning decisions are purely based on planning judgement; it'll speed up the process with developers no longer having to wait for the monthly Committee meetings to come around; and Committee members should, in theory, still be involved in the land designation process as part of the local plan (although we'll have to wait and see if this actually holds true). |
Digitalisation:
The whole planning system will be predicated on technology. Local plans will comprise an interactive web-based map with accompanying text. Technology will be used to screen developments for compliance with policies and requirements – although considerations are rarely truly binary. The planning application process will also become fully digitalised.
It's gratifying to see the planning system finally being hauled into the 21st century in an effort to increase speed, transparency and usability. However, it will take a significant amount of resources, time and training to make sure it works. And the government will need to be careful that the use of technology is appropriate in all circumstances. Look out for our future bulletin which will delve into this in more detail.
What does this mean for developers?
The above proposals put forward by the government are significant and far-reaching. They could add flexibility and speed to the planning process, but if the government isn't careful they could quite easily have the opposite effect. Especially as developers who wish to develop a scheme that doesn't accord with the local plan (and there will probably be many), can and must simply submit a planning application in the usual way. And many large cities and boroughs within these have multiple conservations areas that span their administrative area, so full planning applications will still need to be submitted – dramatically reducing the effect of the reforms on such areas. Although automatic outline permissions helps de-risk the development landscape for developers, how often these are used will very much depend on the parameters fixed by each LPA in its local plan.
As this is only a consultation paper, more detail will need to be provided in due course to properly assess whether this could work. For example, how granular will LPAs be when designating areas? How much detail will actually be left to agree at the detail stage? There's significant focus on reflecting local preferences, but what happens if this conflicts with good planning, or the requirements of the larger area?
One thing is very clear. It will be imperative for developers and the community to engage in the plan-making process and to engage early on. It will be interesting to see how the government proposes to make this happen, given that a recent poll showed a lack of engagement by younger people in the plan-making stage and people tend to only engage when there’s an immediate impact that they can see. LPAs will also have a tough time balancing this extra involvement against the shorter timescales for plan-making. The binding starting point for housing development will also be a positive step in terms of certainty and will enable LPAs to crack on with producing their local plans. The White Paper touches on the components that the new methodology will consist of but more detail is needed on exactly how this will work. The new methodology also risks compounding existing issues – for example the South East will have very high figures in contrast to certain areas in the North – is that really how we should be distributing housing? And if land constraints are taken into account, does this mean that LPAs will no longer need to consider redefining their green belt boundaries?
Overall, these proposals will need to be finely tuned to ensure that the right balance is met between flexibility, simplicity and certainty in the planning system. And the government will need to ensure that LPAs are sufficiently resourced to put these proposals into effect.
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