10 COMMENT Ambitious plans


Lawrence Turner of planning consultants Boyer discusses how the revised NPPF aims to meet Labour’s ambitious housing targets, from brownfi eld passports to grey belts.


Lawrence Turner


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PULL QUOTE (NOT TOO


NEW BUILD COMPLETIONS HAVE SEEN A SIGNIFICANT DECLINE, TO JUST 198,610 IN 2024


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ollowing Angela Rayner’s promise in July 2024 to spearhead a ‘decade of renewal’ with an ambitious housebuilding programme, the development sector was pleased to see the publication of a revised NPPF in December 2024.


In the wake of the Labour Government’s ambitious plan to build 1.5 million new homes by mid-2029, the NPPF has come under signifi cant scrutiny and the overnment’s vision appears increasingly challenging to fulfi l. As the ome uilders Federation F recently reported, new build completions saw a signifi cant decline, to just 19,10 in 2024, illustrating a substantial gap between the Government’s ambitions and the current trajectory of housing supply. Furthermore, fi nancial constraints stemming from high in ation and diminishing affordability has put a strain on fi rst-time buyers’ access to the housing market and the F has urgently called for targeted Government interventions.


HOUSING TARGETS


The new NF retains the majority of the Government’s proposed reforms to national planning policy. The most important of these, fundamental to increasing housebuilding, is


the change to the ‘Standard Methodology.’ This increases local housing need fi gures and puts a greater onus on local authorities in city regions to meet their housing need – effectively delivering the outcomes of the failed Duty to Cooperate. Furthermore, the NPPF strengthens the requirement for local authorities to use the Standard Method and then to “meet an area’s identifi ed housing need. A signifi cant addition to the NF is that found at paragraph c, which requires that from 1 uly 202 a 20 buffer be applied to an LPA’s housing land supply where its annual housing requirement adopted under a previous version of the NF is 0 or less of the most up to date local housing need fi gure calculated using the standard method.


PASSPORT TO BROWNFIELD


Further emphasis has been placed on putting brownfi eld development fi rst, with reference to brownfi eld ‘passports’ and the strengthening of NPPF paragraph 125, which states that brownfi eld proposals should be approved unless substantial harm would be caused. Closely following previously developed land, is the important role of ‘grey belt’ sites in meeting the Government’s 1.5 million home target.


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