Civil service head confirms retention of NPPF 'presumption of in favour of sustainable development'

Sir Bob Kerslake told a British Property Federation (BPF) conference that the presumption was an important part of Government policy. “Economic growth is paramount across every aspect of this government’s policies. And in the national planning policy framework, the presumption will help to ensure that this happens” said Kerslake.

The BPF welcomed Kerslake's comments. “Fundamentally we believe the NPPF is a soundly-based document that contains strong environmental safeguards, and which probably attracts a greater degree of private agreement than much of the public debate around it would suggest" said BPF chief executive Liz Pearce.

The BPF said that there is much common ground between the property sector and some of the critics of the NPPF. It said that the two groups agreed that local plans should be at the heart of the planning system and should be based on sound evidence; that local authorities need to be pressured into getting on with their local plans so that applications could be decided against policies set locally, and that inflammatory statements such as “the default answer to development should be ‘yes’” should be removed.

The BPF has previously expressed concern about local planning authorities' failure to adopt up to date Core Strategies.

 The Government's controversial NPPF will introduce a new "presumption in favour of sustainable development", which states that where a council's local plan is "absent, silent or indeterminate", there is a presumption in favour of granting planning permission for all sustainable development.