NPPF DEBRIEF
Greg Clark, at a local Neighbourhood Planning event.
Shaken: Not stirred We debrief the new National Planning Policy Framework and ask what the new slimmed-down guidelines will mean for you...
Revealed by the coalition government at the end of March, the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) represents the biggest shake-up of the British planning system in more than two generations. Replacing more than a thousand pages of national policy with 50, it is a slim, streamlined framework that the government hopes will promote growth.
peaking in Parliament, the Planning Minister Greg Clark claimed the simpler, pro-development framework places local concerns and quality design at its centre. He claimed the NPPF has “the most exacting requirement for design
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that the English planning system has ever seen. “Too much development in recent years has been mediocre, insensitive and has detracted from the character of the areas in which we live and work,” Clark told Parliament. “The effect has been that much of the public have come to assume that any particular change to our built environment will be negative. What a disastrous state of affairs in a country which is home to some of the most talented architects, designers and craftsmen in the world.”
Although the document fails to define exactly what is meant by ‘quality design’ it did make a determined effort to spell out what is meant by ‘sustainable development’ – which it puts at
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the heart of the planning system. There were fears that pressure from environmental groups would cause the government to shy away from pressing ahead with a presumption in favour of sustainable development, but this is not the case – indeed according to the NPPF document this should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking. In response to those who feared this presumption in favour of development would result in the concreting of rural Britain Clark said the NPPF was designed to put an end to the planning system acting as a drag on growth; but promised it would continue to protect green belt areas.
Clark said: “[Our reforms]
enshrine the local plan – produced by local people – as the keystone of the planning system. The framework is crystal clear that sustainable development embraces social and environmental as well as economic objectives and does so in a balanced way. The NPPF makes explicit what was always implicit: that councils’ policies must encourage brownfield sites to be brought back into use. It also underlines the importance of town centres, while recognising that businesses in rural communities should be free to expand.” But, how will the biggest shake-up in planning for more than two generations effect you? We conducted a vox pop to find out what industry professionals think of the new framework…
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