Housing delivery risk ‘unless NPPF green belt plans clarified’

Pinsent Masons made the recommendation in its response to the UK government's consultation on updating the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The NPPF is the framework that local planning authorities must refer to when setting planning policy, and making planning decisions, at a local level in England.  

Read more from Pinsent Masons on the NPPF proposals

• Rethink ‘golden rules’ for green belt development, UK government urged

Some of the reforms the government has proposed are focused on enabling development on ‘previously developed land’ (PDL) that falls within the green belt and on what it describes as “low quality grey belt land”.

The government proposes to define ‘grey belt’ land as certain land in the green belt that makes a limited contribution to the five stated purposes of the green belt – to check unrestricted urban sprawl; prevent the merging of neighbouring towns; to assist in safeguarding against countryside encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. Certain areas or assets of particular importance as listed in the NPPF are outside the scope of the definition.

Under the government’s proposals, when setting local plans, if local planning authorities cannot meet their local housing and other infrastructure needs on land outside the green belt then this would be an exceptional circumstance requiring the authorities to undertake a green belt review. “There is clear expectation that local planning authorities should seek to meet their development needs in full,” the government said. “However, we remain clear that the release of land should not be supported where doing so would fundamentally undermine the function of the green belt across the area of the plan as a whole.”

When looking to release green belt land for development in a local plan, local planning authorities need to prioritise land that is sustainably located looking first to previously developed land in the green belt; then grey belt land and only after that what is being coined as ’green green belt’ land would be considered for release. Any unsustainably located green belt is the last choice for release, reflecting the NPPF’s sustainable locations focus for all development. 

“The aim of this approach is to ensure that low quality green belt is identified first, while not restricting development of specific opportunities which could be made more sustainable (for example, on land around train stations),” the government said. “This is in recognition that not all PDL or ‘Grey Belt’ will be in the most suitable or sustainable location for development. As such, it is right that local planning authorities are empowered to make decisions that best support the development needs and sustainability objectives of their area through the plan-making process.”

The current draft NPPF does not, however, indicate that green belt sites would be considered sustainable if they could be made sustainable, something that is out of kilter with existing sustainability wording in the wider NPPF. Pinsent Masons has recommended to the government that this inconsistency be amended, particularly as they consider it would otherwise stymie large scale developments in the green belt that of themselves would become sustainable, as they would provide jobs and facilities within the development thereby reducing the need for people to travel by car.

In its consultation response, Pinsent Masons welcomed the proposals for releasing green belt land, but said developers and local planning authorities will need further guidance from the government as to what it understands to mean by ‘fundamentally undermine the function of the green belt across the area of the plan as a whole’.

“Clarity is needed on what government considers would be a fundamental undermining of the green belt otherwise this will be an area for dispute and could prejudice government’s delivery intentions,” Pinsent Masons said, citing ideas for how such guidance might be formed.

Pinsent Masons said: “The Oxford English Dictionary definition of fundamental can usefully be referred to in order to help guide how such a definition for green belt purposes might be crafted – ‘serious and very important’ and ‘affecting the most central and important parts of something”. This could be a geographically based test so that if a development would affect more than a certain percentage of the overall green belt in the plan area it would be considered to fundamentally undermine the green belt across the whole local plan area. Or perhaps linked to the number of strong performance rankings a parcel of land to be given.”

“Care would be needed as if a site were located in a narrow part of the green belt its removal may have more significant impacts even if the site were small in size, than removal of a significant sized area of land in a very wide area of green belt,” Pinsent Masons added.

The government has also proposed to change the NPPF to enable development on PDL or grey belt land for proposed development that falls subject to the decision-making process rather than the local plan process. Development of PDL or grey belt in the green belt would be considered appropriate development and would not necessitate the need for very special circumstances to be made out in order to justify a positive decision to grant planning permission. Instead, such planning applications will be subject to the normal decision-making process – such applications must be decided in line with the NPPF and also development plan policies that local planning authorities draw up.

“We propose to insert a new paragraph in the NPPF which will make clear that, in instances where a local planning authority cannot demonstrate a five-year housing land supply or is delivering less than 75% against the housing delivery test, or where there is unmet commercial or other need, development on the green belt will not be considered inappropriate when it is on sustainable ‘grey belt’ land, where golden rules for major development are satisfied, and where development would not fundamentally undermine the function of the green belt across the area of the plan as a whole.”

Pinsent Masons said, however, that imposing the golden rules in all cases could hamper proposed new development by making schemes unviable, given requirements those proposed new rules would impose in relation to affordable housing, infrastructure development, and the provision of local green spaces – particularly when factored in with increasing expectations around biodiversity net gain and the proposed benchmarking around land values to tighten scope for viability assessments.

The government’s proposals to allow the release of PDL and grey belt land would not just extend to enabling housing development – it is also envisaged to enable local planning authorities to meet commercial and other development needs, subject to the application of the golden rules in all cases.

The government was further invited to reconsider how developers behind certain ‘employment sites’, like logistics, industrial and cyber or security sites, should meet their requirement to provide for local green spaces, as per the golden rules, if employers reasonably and practically need to exclude the public from the sites, and to re-evaluate wording of its proposals to better support certain types of commercial development – including data centres and renewable energy projects.

The consultation closed on 24 September.