Having sought to disengage from the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning for a fortnight over the festive period, nothing focusses the mind when logging back on than seeing that over 3500 people have registered for the NPPF webinar to which I am contributing next week.
Right then…
Having been through the published material now myself, and having collated, reviewed and extracted from some of the material published by others what I feel to be the most pertinent points, I thought that as may as well pull everything together into something that is part-repository and part-editorial. I have separated out what might be described as the ‘key changes’, the ‘other changes’, some ‘points of note’ and then some reflections to finish.
Some points of order. There is an awful lot to cover in the consultation and this piece will not cover everything. The focus will be my areas of professional interest.
This will also likely remain a work in progress during the consultation period so if anything else comes to mind it might get added in due course (thus becoming too a pre-deadline checklist of points that need making).
First things first.
The new draft NPPF is here.
The accompanying consultation document is here.
The deadline for responses is 11.45pm on 10 March 2026. You can respond here.
The accompanying press release is here.
The written ministerial statement is here.
The letter to local authority leaders is here.
The amended PPG in relation to viability here.
Second things second. Before getting into the detail can I suggest if you have not already that you read Zack Simons’ on the whistle analysis (here) and Lichfields summary of the raft of proposed changes (here). Can I also suggest if you have not already that you listen to Zack and my conversation in this 50 Shades episode, during which Zack summaries both the new policy in relation to development around railway stations and the case for NDMPs to have been introduced on a statutory basis (a little on both to follow...).
Key Changes
Structure
This is perhaps the most obvious and eye-catching practical difference, immediately rendering a ‘tracked change’ version of the new draft of the type that became a common accompaniment to recent ‘tinkering’ of little value. This version is very much not a tinkering.
The numbered policies will prove easier to reference and will prove no be of great practical value when it comes to, for example, local plans EiPs and S78 appeal inquiries.
Tone and Intent
The numbered policies will also prove easier to interpret consistently, which speaks to the philosophical change in approach that this new draft points to. Clearer pathways, measurable outcomes and firmer national direction point towards a shift from a discretionary, case-by-case consideration of individual applications towards a more stable, rules-based system.
In plan-making, there is a sharper expectation of pace and focus, with documents becoming more concise, supported by a limited set of measurable outcomes, progressed within a defined timetable, and refreshed on a predictable cycle. The evidence that underpins them should be proportionate, reused wherever possible and not continuously reinvented during examination unless specifically required.
For decision-making, developments that meet clear standards should move more quickly through the process, but, conversely, non-compliance can be considered by decision-makers as determinative rather than merely a factor in a broader planning balance.
It has been pointed out to me that many of the new plan-making and decision-making policies are not actually drafted as one might draft, for example, a local plan policy, but rather as setting almost behavioural expectations on LPAs, which is interesting.
Presumptions. Balances. Tilts.
As well as Zack’s blog I would recommend this from Lichfields.
The following is an extract from a briefing that I was sent by Lorenzo Pandolfi at Logic Planning, which is very well expressed.
In the existing NPPF, the presumption in favour of sustainable development is anchored in the structure of paragraph 11 and its “tilted balance” mechanism.
In the draft, the presumption becomes an operating model expressed through location-based rules.
The system is re-routed through a straightforward logic: decision-taking expectations differ depending on whether development is within a settlement or outside it.
Within settlements, the starting point is approval unless benefits are substantially outweighed by adverse impacts, subject to specified refusal circumstances.
Outside settlements, the draft adopts a categorised approach. Certain types of development or locational circumstances are placed on a clearer approval pathway, while proposals that do not fit those routes face a materially higher hurdle.
The practical effect is that many decisions become less about arguing whether policies are “out of date” and more about whether a proposal sits within a recognised pathway. For developers, this shifts strategic effort upstream: site selection, settlement definition, and category fit become even more determinative.
The tilt is not really dead, but it has been broken into location-based rules that are easier to apply consistently and more difficult to circumvent.
Well-Connected Stations
I would again recommended Zack’s summary of the new policy relating to development around railway stations, as well as this from Lichfields.
What is this policy trying to achieve, one wonders? Is it to allow sensible urban extension and new settlement propositions that would other wise be allocated in local plans to come forward before local plans? In the same way, perhaps, as the Grey Belt policy? If so, it is interested to note that Grey Belt sites are subject to a relatively loose definition, in contrast to the draft definition of well-connected station, which is those in the top 60 English “Travel to Work” areas by gross value added and are served by four trains or trams per hour overall (i.e. two trains per hour in any one direction).
As soon as lines are drawn stations that might otherwise be eminently sensible will get immediately get ruled out (or have to wait for that long-awaited allocation, although strikingly there is not explicit support for land around railway stations in the plan-making policies), but why draw lines in the first place? Presumably this is to prevent a ‘free-for-all’ and a flurry of applications in the middle of National Parks. Why not instead support development around railway stations in sustainable locations and let LPAs decide?
As drafted all prospective propositions will include tussles over what represents a ‘reasonable walking distance’; whether the whole scheme has to be within that arbitrary diameter; whether the density requirements apply across the whole site; and whether stations with one train per hour in any one direction can be made well-connected by the promise of additional services between consent and completion (highlighting again the need for housing and transport to be planned together).
I am also led to believe that some of sites identified by the New Towns Taskforce would fall foul of where the draft lines have been drawn…
That will all no doubt work itself out in the wash, but it does seem to run counter to the spirit of this version, which is to remove reasons to object to, and increase reasons to approve, sensible projects in sensible places.
The development industry should be mindful of quibbling too much though. It is not very long ago that LPAs were not obliged to review Green Belt in order to meet housing need though local plans. Now not only are they, but promoters can pursue schemes on Grey Belt land and land in proximity to hundreds of Green Belt railways stations ahead of local plans where they are not coming forward. As Zack says during our Planoraks podcast episode, that is some shift.
Local Standards
The draft discourages (only discourages…) local plans from duplicating or substantively modifying national decision-making policy except where specifically directed and from regulating matters already addressed elsewhere, including Building Regulations (subject to defined exceptions).
Policy PM13 of the draft states that “quantitative standards set through development plans policies should be limited to infrastructure provision, affordable housing requirements, parking and design and placemaking, and where this will provide clarity and a high degree of certainty about the requirements that relevant development proposals are expected to meet.”.
It is in this area that NDMPs offer the most practical value. Consider, for example, the SME builder trying to navigate two very different sets of policies in relation to energy generation and efficiency in two neighbouring authorities. It is also though in this area that NDMPs might prove most controversial. Consider, for example, an LPA that has declared a climate emergency, is underwhelmed by the pace of regulatory change in relation to energy generation and efficiency, and so purses it’s own policies.
It is to be hoped that the Government stays firm in this regard because, as Simon Ricketts is want to say, it is historic acceptance of local exceptionalism that is why the system has become so labyrinthine.
I would recommend this from Lichfields on this topic.
Other Changes
Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning is back and I would recommend this Lichfields blog on the topic, and these two paragraphs specifically.
For much of the country, the geography is already settled. More than half of the population is led by Mayors, and across at least 7 of the major cities, the preparation of SDSs is already underway. However, for much of the rest of the country the new strategic geographies are still to be resolved, including areas which are simultaneously undergoing local government re-organisation as the two-tier county-district authorities are disbanded. In practical terms this remains one of the most important steps that need to be taken before universal SDS coverage.
A potential challenge to this new system, is how to deal with the unmet need in an SDS that cannot meet its own housing needs within its boundaries. For example an urban combined authority that might have used to (under the duty to co-operate) share need with neighbouring local authorities, that form part of the same housing market area but are now in a different SDS. Essentially, how to deal with unmet need that remains at an SDS level across different SDS areas.
Density
I will take Lorenzo Pandolfi’s word for it, but apparently, having not featured in the current NPPF at all, the word intensification features in the draft seven times.
There is an expectation that opportunities within settlements should be optimised through the redevelopment of low-density residential plots (garden grabbing!), infill development, upward extensions, higher buildings at street corners and remediation of underused land.
Perhaps most interestingly, again harking back to the Govian era when ‘character’, as well as Green Belt, was a reason not to meet housing need, character is very much not now a reason not to make better use of sustainable sites.
Just in relation to ‘garden grabbing’, it is interesting that, again as with railway stations, the in-principle support is heavily caveated. Policy L2 places limits on the scale of redevelopment within “residential curtilages”, stating that schemes should “not occupy more than twice the footprint of the existing building on the site, and retain at least 50% of the non-developed area within the building curtilage”. That would seem to rule more gardens out than in?
It was also interesting in the context of the Croydon brouhaha that the Shadow Minister focused on garden grabbing when responding to Mr Pennycook’s WMS.
B8
The Industrial & Logistics sector will be buoyed that substantial weight should now be given to the economic benefits of proposals for commercial development which would allow improvements in this sector, and that unmet need for B8 is supported outside of settlements.
Whilst a ‘standard method’ for calculating land for employment uses will never be as easy to alight upon as on for housing, some frameworks in the PPG for determining how much land should be identified for such purposes through SDSs, and for calculating unmet need and defining ‘market signals’, would strengthen SDS evidence bases, be a platform for local plan allocations, and reduce the scope for disagreements at Section 78 appeals when applications to meet that unmet need are submitted in the meantime.
Whilst recognising that the nature of B8 development might make location in proximity to existing settlements inappropriate in some circumstances, explicit reference to locations that can be appropriate (major road and rail interchanges) might be helpful.
Viability / Benchmark Land Value
The draft does little to dispel a sense that the powers that be within MHCLG remain firmly of the view that the state is not capturing enough of the uplift in land value when planning permission is granted and that, when planning permission is granted, evil developers will, as a matter of course, seek disoblige themselves of affordable housing contributions.
New policy DM5 “seeks to reduce cases of unnecessary site-specific viability assessment by clarifying when it may be appropriate at the decision-making stage”.
In relation, narrowly, to Grey Belt and the Golden Rules, Paul Tucker posted the following on LinkedIn.
Happily, after a mere 12 months Government has deleted the sentence in para 30 of the viability PPG, that prevented para §156 of NPPG having effect when applying the Golden Rules in a Green Belt context. So proposals which cant viably deliver the additional 15% of Affordable above policy, but are otherwise acceptable forms of development in the GB can now be consented. This is good, news even if the delay in issuing the amended viability chapter of PPG remains baffling.
In relation, more broadly, to the onward direction of travel, this seems like a fair summary from Dan Hay on LinkedIn.
Early Reviews
This is an extract from Zack’s blog.
When it comes to housing land supply, things are streamlined in a very welcome way. Because - drumroll - no more footnote 39. Aka no more carve-outs for local plan housing requirements which have been (quote unquote) “reviewed” (often with the softest of velvet gloves) and have, surprise surprise, been somehow found (quote unquote) “not to require updating” even though they’re enormously out of date. Anyhow. Now 5 year housing land supply falls to be judged against a development plan requirement or, if it’s more than 5 years old, then local housing need. Full stop: Annex D.
Green Belt / Grey Belt
This, from Lichfields, on Footnote 7 is worth a read.
Site Sizes
I would recommend this from Lichfields on this topic.
To long-established site size criteria we can now add the prospect of ‘super strategic sites’ (Question 82) in relation to which this paper from James Scott at Urban & Civic might be of interest.
We can also add a new medium size category, which seems to be 10-49 homes for DM purposes, but between 1 and 2.5 hectares for the purposes of allocating 10% of a housing requirement on such sites.
My sense would be that if SME builders were asked, exemptions to the Building Safety Levy; “a cash payment in lieu of an affordable housing contribution; and proportionate validation requirements would be welcomed, but not as much as a Part 2 Brownfield Register.
BNG
Alongside the NPPF consultation, the Government has announced that sites under 0.2 hectares will be exempt from BNG, which is lower than the 0.5 hectares originally consulted upon.
There is also a promise to consult “rapidly” on an “additional targeted exemption for residential brownfield development (testing ranges up to 2.5ha).” Most practitioners would likely just want all open mosaic habitats on brownfield sites to be disregarded, which reminds me to share this from PAS on the exemptions that already apply and which I do not see being widely publicised when open mosaic is a barrier to brownfield sites coming forward.
Mix
I would recommend this from Lichfields on this topic.
Miscellaneous
Valued landscapes are no more; the question of harm to designated heritage assets is to be split into three categories: ‘harm’, ‘substantial harm’, and ‘total loss’; it is proposed that the retail sequential test be done away with and everybody seems relatively happy that the surface water flood risk imbroglio has been dealt with.
Points of Note
Transitions
In DM terms, the draft proposes that as soon as it is published in final form, local plan policies that are “in any way inconsistent with the national decision-making policies” outlined in the NPPF should be given “very limited weight” in decision-making. This bold and welcome, but likely grounds for some bones of contention.
In policy terms, the draft is, as with previous recent version, somewhat generous towards LPAs it might be said in some quarter.
This is from Lichfields.
The fly in the ointment for those seeking an NPPF that maximises the prospect of housing delivery, is the Annex A transitional provisions which at para 3 provide protection for local plans adopted in the past five years and which, in those areas, for the rest of this parliament will bake in the Gove-era housing legacy that the current Government is so keen to say it has replaced.
This is from Zack Simons.
“Evidence of unmet need” as a really important idea under this NPPF, because one of the key components of the new tilted balance at S5. So pay careful attention to §3 of Annex A. For areas with local plans adopted in the last 5 years, so long as they have a 5 year supply of housing land, and are not sub-75% on their housing delivery test, then local housing need exceeding their housing requirement in the development plan is not, the NPPF says, “evidence of unmet need”. Even if the relevant the plan was prepared under old NPPFs with totally different approaches to meeting housing needs. An early estimate from Lichfields suggests that paragraph alone has a combined opportunity cost for housing delivery of around 77,000 homes across five years.
We will not get anywhere near the 370,000 homes a year imagined by the Standard Method until LPAs have to plan for Standard Method figures.
Oh, and relatedly, given the important of the HDT, should results not be published in a more timely and regular manner?
Shelly Rouse’s ‘Cascade of Proportionality’
National policies reflecting national priorities; SDSs to tie together greater-than-local issues; local plans identifying local sites, perhaps identified through neighbourhood plans in smaller-tier settlements; all point to much more coherent planning system.
Two key questions then. From where derives the confidence that SDSs will be ubiquitous by the end of the Parliament, and why are neighbourhood plans still conferred the same status?
National Scheme of Delegation
This is yet to emerge and it will be very interesting to see if it reflects the desire for applications in compliance with clear standards to be afforded swifter passage through the system.
The move from the discretionary, case-by-case consideration of individual applications towards a more stable, rules-based system means changing some of the points at which there is democratic oversight of some decisions.
Again, it is to be hoped that the Government stays firm in this regard because it also speaks to the earlier point about local exceptionalism.
Design
There would appear to be a formal and final retrenchment from the legal requirement for authority-wide design codes as imagined by the LURA, but there is support for ‘upstreaming’ codes and masterplans through local plans and for design review through the DM process, the latter point obviously begging the question as to how effective design review is across the country presently.
Reflections
What more do we want?
As well as being the most significant rewriting of national
planning policy since the first 2012 version of the NPPF, I have heard it
suggested that this version represents the most cogent and coherent expression of
national planning policy ever, which there does seem to be a strong case for.
The elegant structural changes will stand the test of time
and will serve practitioners well.
The presumptions are clearer and stronger and more land will
be subject to them upon adoption.
And yet, and yet…
If there is a sense amongst some that ‘it does not go far enough’
it likely stems from not yet having the time to fully recognise and appreciate
the changes, as well as a growing frustration with the divergence between the rhetoric of
the MHCLG Communications Team and the realm of reality, which is obviously not fair on the teams of civil servants responsible
for painstakingly putting this draft together.
A default ‘yes’
to suitable homes being built around rail stations.
Providing the
same ‘yes’ to new homes building upwards in towns and cities, fast-tracking
development schemes that meet high standards for well-designed homes.
A truly seismic regearing of the system – in support of
growth, and through growth of hope and opportunity.
The Communications Team is obviously not talking to us when
it writes those things, but it does still raise the bar of expectation.
Now. I have heard an eloquent case for statutory NDMPs and I
have heard an eloquent case for non-statutory NDMPs. Putting that aside, the
case for statutory NDMPs is to remain ‘under review’ and will be reconsidered
“if the proposed policies do not have the desired outcomes of supporting more
effective decisions and reducing generic or alternate policies in development
plans”.
Wait. So encouraging more land to come forward is not an explicitly
stated outcome of the NDMPs? Is that leaving no stone unturned, Secretary of State?
Putting the existential question about NDMPs aside, according
to Nick
Lee on LinkedIn, there are 9 "musts" (on legal points, or where
the NPPF has to be followed) and 550 "shoulds", so even the non-statutory
NDMPs could pack more of a punchy than the gentle nudges proposed. Is that leaving no stone unturned, Secretary of State?
To labour these points though, so to speak, is to risk sounding a
little churlish because it probably is fair for the title of the press release that
accompanied this draft to say that the ‘Housing Secretary pledges to 'go
further than ever before' to hit 1.5 million homes'.
The consultation document states that
If we are to achieve our goals, the system we have moved
so rapidly to regear must enter a period of stability over the second half of
this Parliament and beyond. One in which every actor – from government to local
authorities to applicants – must seize the benefits of change by bringing a
laser like focus to delivery.
I do not think that we can ask for more than that.
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