The new Labour Government proposes to produce an updated version of the National Planning Policy Framework within its first 100 days and could publish changes by the end of July. Labour says it will "undo damaging Conservative changes", which will include reinstating mandatory housing targets for local authorities, strengthening the presumption in favour of sustainable development and clarifying thorny issues such as strategic green-belt release. This agility is a welcome sign that Labour seems to be approaching the challenge with ambition, but history tells us that caution must always be exercised when making all but the simplest of changes to the NPPF - whatever the positive messages behind them.
The NPPF is certainly the lowest hanging of the planning reform fruits, but beyond that the matter of how Labour will deliver on its more ambitious manifesto promises will be dictated by priorities and speed with which it can implement change – requiring industry engagement, consultation and legislative reform. We await to see how far the Government will distance itself from some or all of the unimplemented parts of the Conservatives' Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) – which was to be the outgoing Government's route-map to an improved planning system.
Labour's housing ambition is £1.5m new homes over the next Parliament, relying upon (fast-tracked urban) brownfield redevelopment, achieving the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation and (in the longer term) 'new towns' linked to reliable transport links – all of which are all heavily infrastructure dependent. Ministers must grapple with the complexities of local authority resources and infrastructure funding and therefore the question of whether to proceed with a new 'Infrastructure Levy' or whether some combination of existing CIL and planning gain regimes can support the ambition. Manifesto pledges to consolidate planning powers and improve cross-boundary strategic planning between local authorities will help to identify infrastructure policy priorities to unlock development. However, it is on these sorts of issues that the pace of any "blitz of planning reform" soon encounters the factors which have always affected the speed with which land can come forward for development – whether for housing, employment or industrial uses.
Reforms must also ensure that the planning system is aligned with evolving environmental policy and legislation and Labour will need to decide whether to overhaul the current regime of environmental impact assessment – another unimplemented aspect of the LURA. The manifesto tackles the issue of nutrient neutrality, which has been the cause of a significant house-building log jam in recent years. Labour states that it will implement a solution to unlock affected house-building but "without weakening environmental protections" – details of how this will be achieved are yet to be confirmed.
The revised NPPF will be the first indicator of Labour's policies to 'Get Britain Building Again' and will hopefully send a clear message to instil confidence in both local authority decision-makers and developers. We look forward to reading the proposed changes by the end of the month!
