Some evidence suggesting the CPRE are wrong about the National Planning Policy Framework

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A core criticism of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has been that it will be in place ahead of most local authorities having adopted a Local Development Framework (LDF). Given that the NPPF states that, in the absence of a policy locally or nationally the presumption should be that (sustainable) development is permitted. Hence the CPRE’s response:

An analysis by CPRE shows that almost half of England’s local authorities (48 per cent) will be without an adopted Core Strategy development plan document on 1 April 2012 when the NPPF is intended to come into force. Almost a fifth (17 per cent) of local plans are still likely to be missing a year later. This means that, if the NPPF is not altered and no effective transitional arrangements for local planning are provided, planning applications in those areas will be decided primarily in accordance with national rather than local planning policy.

The obvious concern here is that developers will target authorities without a Core Strategy to force through their developments over the heads of local councils and local councillors. Now I don’t lay claim to being a planning lawyer – or even a planner – but I’ve been pretty sure from the start that this argument is best described as “scaremongering”. It’s probably true that, if developers felt it worth their while, there would be an increase in planning appeals (as CPRE suggest).

The question therefore is how the system – applicants, planning authorities, planning inspectors and the courts – view the period of transition. In simple terms what weight is given to the different plans, policies by those making recommendations and decisions?

Are the CPRE right in arguing that the NPPF – once approved by parliament – will trump any other plan? Or am I right in taking the view that, so long as the local authority is progressing to an LDF, that will be recognised and given due weight? Plus of course the recognition that “saved policies” from the previous (in Bradford’s case) ‘replacement Unitary Development Plan’ (rUDP) will also be given weight in any decision – rather like this (quotes taken from APP/W4705/A/11/2154371 Buck Park Quarry, Denholme):

“With respect to national policy, besides Planning Policy Statements (PPSs), Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) and Mineral Policy Guidance (MPG), the Draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is capable of being a material consideration.”

This rather supports the CPRE position except that the same Inspector, in the same decision, also said:

“The Council is in the process of preparing its Local Development Framework (LDF) and specifically it’s Core Strategy (CS)...for the next 15 year plan period to 2027. The CS...were published for public consultation and are scheduled to be submitted for public examination sometime in 2012. Given their advanced stage towards adoption, I give these documents more than the negligible weight ascribed to them by the appellant’s planning policy witness.”

This rather undermines the CPRE position. The developer argued that the emerging LDF should be ignored in preference for the historic rUDP. I cannot see that planning authorities, inspectors or the courts will take a different approach to challenges relating to the NPPF once adopted as national policy. Where local planning authorities are well advanced in developing a local plan, I can’t see there being this frightening scenario where there is no policy.

As I’m sure the CPRE’s planners know, the system has always allowed for weight to be given to new plans before approval – which applies equally to the NPPF and to LDFs. But then that wouldn’t have made a headline now would it!

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Mad Frankie is right here....

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Francis Maude - dubbed 'Mad Frankie" by Mr Fawkes - had this to say about the National Trust and planning:

"No. I mean, our position is right. I think this idea, that creating a presumption in favour of sustainable development is somehow a massive erosion of the ability to conserve, is bollocks, frankly."

As we've said before, there is current a presumption in favour of any kind of development (it's in the original 1947 Act). Under the changes there will be a presumption in favour of sustainable development.

Precisely how much of a change is that?

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Is planning too "professionalised"? You bet it is!

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Liberal Democrat Communities Minister, Andrew Stunnell hits the nail firmly on the head:

"A reasonable charge was put to me that I wasn’t being respectful enough of the planning profession. My point is that we have made it so professional.

 "This isn’t brain surgery. This is about how you shape your community. This ought to be a community-owned occupation, not something that requires a huge overwhelming amount of technical content."

Absolutely - by allowing the creation of a monstrous professional bureaucracy, we exclude the general public, the ordinary citizen, from the process except a supplicants (and frustrated supplicants at that).

And Mr Stunnell also reminds us that the "presumption in favour of development" was included in the 1947 Act that established the planning system.
 

"If you go back to 1947, you find that the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act had in it a presumption in favour of development, unless material considerations dictate otherwise.

 "The row now is that we’ve got a presumption in favour of sustainable development. The difference between 1947 and 2011 is not the presumption in favour of sustainable development, it’s the addition of the word sustainable."

 
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Saying it's a "material consideration" isn't applying the new planning rules

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The Daily Telegraph is again seeking to scare its NIMBY readers about the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF):

Official inspectors, who have the power to approve local developments, were given the fresh guidance by the Planning Inspectorate last week.

 It told them to start abiding by the new draft planning framework, which campaigners fear could lead to unchecked development in rural areas, because it represents the Government’s “direction of travel”.

Terrifying I know. Except that nearly all applications get nowhere near a planning inspector and, more to the point, that isn't what the inspectors have been told. Which is:

“The draft NPPF is likely to be referred to by the parties in current appeal and development plan casework.

 “Whilst it is a consultation document and, therefore, subject to potential amendment, nevertheless it gives a clear indication of the Government’s 'direction of travel’ in planning policy.

“Therefore, the draft National Planning Policy Framework is capable of being a material consideration, although the weight to be given to it will be a matter for the decision maker’s planning judgment in each particular case.”

So inspectors haven't been told to apply the new NPPF but have been reminded that people in the planning appeals process will refer to it, that this is material and that the inspector should use his judgement. And this is important since there is loads of precedent for Bills before parliament being material considerations in planning. Furthermore it is very clear that the weight given to a particular material consideration is wholly a matter for the planner and always has been. And the law is pretty clear (this from the recent Cala Homes ruling in the High Court):

Secondly, the provisions of a draft development plan document progressing through its statutory process towards adoption, even while objections to them remain unresolved, can be material considerations in a planning decision. There is abundant authority to this effect (see paragraph P70.09 of the Encyclopedia of Planning Law and Practice). Thirdly, emerging national policy, for example in the form of a draft circular or Planning Policy Statement, can also be a material consideration

So all that the Planning Inspectorate has done is to remind inspectors of what the law says. That the NPPF is a material consideration is a matter of fact - how much weight is given to it is a matter of the inspector's judgement. The main considerations for inspectors - the rules if you like - remain the current legislation and, where they are in place, the strategic plans of the local planning authority.

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Mrs Fowler's problem is nothing to do with the Coalition proposals on planning...

The view into Swaledale - nowhere near Sudbury but lovely nonetheless

Planning is a tricky business. Especially if, like me, you’re the elected representative of about 20,000 people living in West Yorkshire’s ‘green belt’ – or the glorious South Pennines as I prefer to call it. However, the degree of rubbish that is spoken about planning beggars belief. And is only topped by the utter nonsense spouted from all sides on the subject of housing and housing markets.

The biggest bit of nonsense is the implication that our current planning system doesn’t start from the premise that the land owner has a right to develop. The point of planning has not been to stop development but to direct that development. This has always been so and, despite the efforts of socialists and assorted NIMBYs, remains the case.

So when the government proposes a simplified planning frame work that presumes in favour of “sustainable development”, why do we get an explosion of shock and wild claims that vast acres of England’s green and pleasant land will be snaffled up by evil housing developers seeking only vast profits from the building of ticky-tacky boxes all over those productive fields.

We get writing like this evoking England’s wonders:

The fields are at their most golden and shadowy now, their soft lines framed by the ash trees; the sloes and blackberries are swelling, and plums squash underfoot. Two bikes are abandoned by the track, left by children who are exploring the woods. A young couple smooch in the weakening summer light. A flushed jogger from the local estate waves, as his Spaniel strains to get off the lead and on to the open land.

The writer, one Rebecca Fowler, wishes to protect her interests as the owner of a fine old house with a glorious view. And apparently the Coalition's policies are threatening this interest:

Twelve months on, it is not the spectre of ghosts that face us, but bulldozers. We are at the centre of a battle for the countryside threatened by potentially drastic “planning reforms”. As Clive Aslet outlined this week in The Daily Telegraph, under the new government proposals, the opportunity for effective local opposition to housing developments will be superseded, and cash incentives offered to councils to pass plans in a bid to boost the economy with a quick-fix, concrete-coated solution.

Immediately I smelled a rat – this woman is opposing an existing planning proposal under existing planning rules. Why – other than the newspaper’s campaign – is she referring to rules not yet in place?

Yet that view is now threatened by a development of 170 houses. Despite passionate opposition, not just from ourselves but more than 2,000 locals, English Heritage and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, plans are close to being approved.

So it has precisely nothing to do with the new National Planning Policy Framework at all. But is a purely local debate as to whether or not Mrs Fowler’s view should be spoiled conducted in the context of planning policies and planning guidance introduced by a Labour government.

For sure, the NPPF won’t change this – there’s still a view that the owners of property should be allowed to develop that property unless there are reasons for that not to happen. And the presumption in favour of development enshrined in the original 1947 Act is, for the first time, to be conditional on it being “sustainable”.

The substantive change in the rules following from NPPF is that the specifics of planning – where to develop housing, industry and so forth – it no longer dictated by national guidance or regional plans but by the local councillors we elect to represent us. People who we can ‘un-elect’ should we so wish. The ability of developers to appeal to distant inspectors is curtailed and the centralising, controlling ‘planning policy guidance’ and ‘planning policy statements’ will be consigned to the dustbin.

Right now those 2000 people (plus Mrs Fowler) in Sudbury are opposing a vast, impenetrable bureaucratic system that satisfies no-one except the planners and lawyers who make their livings from its byzantine detail. Allowing local decisions makes sense – it may still mean Mrs Fowler loses her view but that decision will be made by politicians who she and her neighbours elect not by a government official in Bristol.

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