Revisions announced to the National Planning Policy Framework

Last week the government published the latest version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). We take a look at what this means for developers and local planning authorities…

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was revised on 12 December 2024. The Government stated that the revisions represented an ‘overhaul of the planning system to accelerate housebuilding and deliver 1.5 million homes over this Parliament’.

It added that ‘Hard working families locked out of owning their own home for far too long will benefit from the government’s landmark planning changes.’

The revisions include:

• Housing targets: Local planning authorities will be given mandatory housing targets in a bid to both increase homebuilding and meet local housing needs. Higher targets will be allocated in areas that have the highest housing unaffordability and growth potential.
• Green Belt: Councils will be required to review Green Belt boundaries in what the Government calls a ‘commonsense approach’ to Green Belt, in order to identify ‘grey belt’ land, which will be prioritised. To support these reviews, areas will receive an additional £100 million of cash next year that can be used to hire more staff and consultants as well as more resources to carry out technical studies and site assessments.
  
  Development approved on Green Belt will be subject to five ‘golden rules’:
  • Brownfield first
  • Grey belt second
  • Affordable homes
  • Boost public services and infrastructure
  • Improve genuine green spaces
    
    The onus will be on developers to provide affordable and social housing, and infrastructure, such as nurseries, GP surgeries and transport.
    
    Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner commented that: ‘’Brownfield land must continue to be the first port of call for any new development and the default answer when asked to build on brownfield should always be ‘yes’. The government is also exploring further action to support and expedite the development of brownfield land in urban areas through ‘brownfield passports’ with more details to be set out next year.’’
• Golden Rules: Complying with the Golden Rules as stated above will add significant weight in favour of permission being granted for a development.
• Decision-making: Linked to the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ the new NPPF has tweaked the wording so that it says for decision-taking, development should be approved unless there is a ‘strong’ reason for refusal. Previously, the NPPF used the word ‘clear’ reason for refusal, which indicates the bar is now slightly higher before LPAs (local planning authorities) can justify the refusal of permission.
• Affordable housing: The minimum number of affordable homes for major developments (at least 10%) has been removed.
• Housing need: LPAs are now required to ‘meet an area’s identified housing need’, as opposed to the previous NPPF requiring them to meet ‘as much…as possible’. This speaks to the government’s ambition to achieve significantly increased delivery of housing, with no excuses. This is reinforced by the requirement for LPAs’ housing need assessments to be informed by the government’s standard method, rather than being a ‘starting point’.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “For far too long, working people graft hard but are denied the security of owning their own home. But with a generation of young people whose dream of homeownership feels like a distant reality, and record levels of homelessness, there’s no shying away from the housing crisis we have inherited.

“We owe it to those working families to take urgent action, and that is what this government is doing. We’re taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people.”

Responding to the National Planning Policy Framework revisions, Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive, Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), said: “Local government is eager to support the Government’s house building agenda. But planning is only one part of this picture. House building has to be seen in the context of local economic development, skills provision and public service delivery.

“As leaders of place – councils are not just concerned with delivering houses but with building homes and communities.

“It’s right that the Government has high expectations of councils, but they also need to provide them with the support that will enable them to rise to this challenge.”

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