Select Committee on Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions First Report

5  Meeting Targets on Planning Reforms

21. The Annual Report sets outs the key objective to promote an efficient planning system, however key target dates to deliver these objectives are not being met. Following the Planning Green Paper, published in December 2001, the Government set out proposals for reform of the planning system in 'Sustainable Communities: delivering through planning' in July 2002 which provided the foundation for the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill (currently before Parliament). However, the target dates for reforming the negotiation of planning agreements and revising planning policy guidance are not being achieved.

Planning agreements ('planning gain')

22. The Government has promised for at least the last two years to revise guidelines on the negotiation of planning agreements. The original proposal in the Planning Green Paper was to require developers to make a payment, a tariff, to the local authority if a planning permission was granted. This proposal was dropped following widespread opposition. It then committed itself to streamline the current system to enable the community to share in the benefits arising from development and to make it more transparent and predictable. Eventually, it has put forward alternative proposals which would give developers the option to pay a tariff to fulfil its planning obligation instead of negotiating their contribution.[24] Comments have to be made by January 8^th 2004 allowing for only eight weeks public consultation, less than the 12 weeks consultation period normally allowed for consultation on Government proposals. The proposal to introduce a tariff on a voluntary basis requires extensive discussion but having dithered for months, the Government has only allowed a severely limited consultation period.

Planning Policy Guidance

23. The Planning Green Paper in December 2001[25] prioritised the revision of Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) notes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15 and 16, together with Minerals Planning Guidance note 1. These would be reviewed "over the next two years" (i.e. by the end of 2003) and renamed Planning Policy Statements (PPS). In July 2002, Sustainable Communities: delivering through planning included a formal commitment by the Department to review all existing national planning policy guidance over the course of the next three years. It anticipated the revision of PPG6 by the end of 2003 and PPGs 15 & 16 by "December 2003/early 2004". The timetable in the Planning Green Paper has already slipped for most priority reviews of PPGs, as they are now due to be published in 2004. So far only PPS 7 on countryside planning has been published in September 2003. The Government published proposals in August 2003 to update PPG 3 on housing and draft versions of PPS12 and 13. It has proposed replacing PPG 21 on tourism with good practice guidance.

24. The original target to review a clutch of priority PPGs by the end of 2003 clearly cannot now be achieved. At the current rate of progress, it seems impractical for the Department to issue proposals for (let alone formally publish) revised policy for all 25 PPGs and MPG 1 by July 2005, in line with the July 2002 commitment in Sustainable Communities: delivering through planning. Even if the policies are revised in that timescale the good practice guidance is likely to follow, completing the totality of the review process only much later.

25. The failure to deliver on commitments to reform the planning system by issuing wholesale revised guidance notes, has led to uncertainty and delays in planning decisions because of impending revisions to policies. We recommend that the Department redoubles its effort to complete the revision of national planning policy, and supporting good practice advice, where necessary, by July 2005. The ODPM would do well formally to withdraw its stated intention to revise the less controversial Planning Policy Guidance Notes.

---

24   Contributing to sustainable communities - a new approach to planning obligations ODPM November 2003 Back

25   Planning: delivering a fundamental change ODPM December 2001 Back

---

Prepared 17 December 2003