Ambiguity in NPPF could mean planning by appeal, says CLG Select Committee report

The Committee said in its report (244-page/1.99MB PDF) that the term 'sustainable development' should be clearly defined by the NPPF; the default answer of 'yes' to sustainable development should be removed from it; the term 'significantly and demonstrably' should be removed from it and the burden of proof should be on developers to show that developments do not cause significant harm.

According to the Committee, a clear definition of "sustainable development" is a "vital component of the NPPF". The term is poorly defined and is used interchangeably with "sustainable economic growth", which makes the document unbalanced, it said.

The Committee said that the draft NPPF conflates the terms ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainable economic growth’, thereby making the document unbalanced; the two terms are distinct and should be kept separate in the Framework.

The Committee said that the NPPF should use as its starting point for defining 'sustainable development' a 1987 report for the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Report.

The definition should build on the ‘Brundtland’ definition and encompass the five principles of sustainable development set out in the UK's Sustainable Development Strategy from 2005, the Committee said.

The NPPF uses the phrase ‘significantly and demonstrably’ but should replace this with the word "significant". The presumption that all planning applications should be approved unless the adverse effects ‘significantly and demonstrably’ outweigh the benefits is too weighted in favour of development, it said.

The Coalition Government produced the draft NPPF as part of reforms to the planning system. It ran a consultation on the draft which closed in October and received over 10,000 responses The NPPF will be finalised and published by April 2012, the Government has said.

In its report, the CLG Committee acknowledge that most respondents to the consultation backed draft NPPF and did not advocate a "wholesale re-write" of it. The Committee has recommended some changes to the draft policy.

"There is a need for simplification in the planning system but delivery will be quicker if the guidance is even handed and has greater legitimacy," said Richard Ford, planning law expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com. "Defining 'sustainable development' more clearly does present challenges though - the more detail there is, the more 'tests' there will be to satisfy."

The importance of local plans in conjunction with the NPPF is highlighted by the Committee and it emphasises that it is "unacceptable" that so many parts of England are not covered by an adopted Local Plan.

To reinforce the importance of Local Plans to spur local authorities on in their preparation, the presumption policy should be redefined as "a presumption in favour of sustainable development consistent with the Local Plan". This would anchor sustainable development to local circumstances, the Committee report said.

It is "essential" that the Government implement a strict but realistic timetable for transition to Local Plans, the Committee said. This would allow local authorities time to put Local Plans in place, and reassure local authorities, communities and developers on the status of Local Plans that are close to adoption, or have recently been adopted.

Local authorities, communities and developers all need reassurance on the status of the current regime for development control decisions, it said. At the same time, flexibility should be built in to enable authorities to regularly update Local Plans "in a light touch manner" to increase certainty and reduce the likelihood of challenge, said the report.

The Committee welcomed the Government's willingness to reinstate the term 'brownfield'. It said that the 'brownfield first' policy should be reinstated and backed a new requirement for local authorities to set their own targets for the use of brownfield land.

The removal of the brownfield first policy, in conjunction with the introduction of the presumption in favour of sustainable development and changes to the allocation of land for housing would, in its view, result in less importance being attached to the use of previously developed land.

Local authorities should be made to prioritise brownfield land when identifying a six-year supply of housing, the Committee report said. This would avoid the risk that the total supply will contain a greater proportion of greenfield sites. In absence of this, the increased amount of housing land that must be identified could result in more greenfield sites being earmarked for housing.

Sites that become available unexpectedly, or windfall sites, should be able to form part of local authorities' plans alongside brownfield land, the Committee said. It said that some authorities may be unable to indentify a six year supply of land for housing and that further clarity is needed.

Consistency between local authorities in assembling evidence bases for Local Plans is essential to the effective operation of a new duty under the Localism Act for them to co-operate, the Committee said. It recommended that guidance being prepared on the assembly of an evidence base for housing be adopted and that similar guidance be produced on assessing need.

It should also be made clear that unsustainable development will not be allowed to proceed as a result of appeals against local authorities which have not allocated the full six year supply, as required by the NPPF, the report said.

It also said that the 'town centre first' policy should clarify the position on arts, culture and tourism uses to ensure they are included. It recommended that offices are included within the policy.

The Committee has welcomed ministers' clarifications on 'viability' and has recommended that the NPPF should make it absolutely clear that calculations of viability  should relate to the requirement to provide infrastructure necessary to the development, not just those that are deemed to be acceptable to the developer. The report said that sustainability should always rank ahead of viability, when reducing a scheme's cost to make it viable.

The Committee recommended that, in exceptional circumstances, communities should be allowed to "adopt an absolute protection of a town centre from out of-town retail development".

The interrelationship between the NPPF and local plans and new neighbourhood plans should be set out clearly in the policy, it said. The way in which strategic and local policies are approached and applied should be addressed, particularly when conflict arises, it said.

"The Government has set great store by the brevity and simplicity of the NPPF, but in its current form the draft NPPF does not necessarily achieve clarity by virtue of its brevity," the report said. It said that a short consultation should be carried out with practitioners on the NPPF, and that the Government should carry out a brief but wider consultation if it makes substantial changes to what might be reasonably regarded as key principles in the final NPPF.