Sam Stafford's Blog

Episode 86 of the 50 Shades of Planning Podcast is a discussion with John Cheston, Ian Butt, Kim Tagliarini, Chris Outtersides and Catriona Riddell about a paper they contributed to in October 2022 entitled 'What does a good local plan look like?' The paper is reproduced here for both the 50 Shades listenership and planners more widely. What does a good local plan look like? A Discussion Paper October 2022 Summary The Government embarked on an overhaul of the planning system in England in August 2020. Since then, various proposals have been considered with the overarching aim being a faster, fairer and simpler planning system. A key part of this is maintaining a ‘plan-led’ approach with a focus on more community participation, particularly through the use of digital technology and in things like design coding, making decision-making through the development management function faster and less divisive. This discussion paper has been co-authored by a group of spatial planning pro...

“Of course I support the building of more homes, but they have to be the right homes in the right places…” If that has been written once to emolliate a nakedly cynical objection to a planning application or a draft local plan allocation it has been written a thousand times. The need for the ‘right homes in the right places’ alas now finds itself at the heart of the  Government’s attitude towards planning for housing, featuring as it does in the first line of the ‘Planning for housing’ chapter of the consultation on proposed changes to the NPPF . The NPPF has since first published in 2012 referred to a commitment to ‘significantly boost the supply of housing’, but the current proposal introduces into the very first paragraph a need for 'sufficient' housing. The change in tone between the first version and the proposed version could scarcely be more marked. From softening land supply and delivery test provisions, taking in additional policy protection for agricultural land, addit...