The draft NPPF is out for consultation. Responses are due by 17th October. If you want to look at the NPPF draft, go to www.communities.gov.uk and follow the links. Study the list of PPG’s and PPS’s (existing planning policies) that will ‘fall away’ after NPPF implementation, alongside many other documents on the site.
Ministers are determined to get the NPPF in place by April 2012. The Communities and Local Government officers running a recent Planning Workshop said:
‘We’re not ripping anything up – we are just shrinking the documents – we are capturing the essence of the planning system’.
The workshop consisted mainly of Q and A’s – here’s a selection of them:
First up was the new draft definition of soundness :
Plans have to be http://www.hereforhereford.co.uk/?p=159&preview=true
Positively prepared (including a viability assessment)
Justified
Effective
Consistent with national policy
Next was the definition of sustainable development :
Planning to support an economy fit for the 21st century with prosperity as the goal
Planning for people, including the local authority’s obligation to keep a 5year rolling supply of deliverable sites for a designated number of houses + 20%, all rolling along within a 15year ‘land pipeline’
Planning for places which protect and enhance our natural, built and historic environment and implement climate change
Question: How will these environmental obligations fit with the proposals in the Natural Environment white paper?
Answer : ‘They will fit; they are aligned’
Question: What about the presumption in favour of sustainable development?
Answer : The framework has to be taken as a whole and if the adverse impacts of allowing development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, then the presumption in favour of sustainable development will not apply.
Question: ‘Why does the Local Authority have to do impact assessments when a developer is not obliged to demonstrate ‘no significant impacts’? There’s a danger of losing landscapes and employment land if there is no other suitable land for housing.
Answer: Housing provision must be in the context of the environment.
Question: Why try to dilute the total planning view of the old system? This country has an infrastructure deficiency and the new framework is going to make it worse.
