House of Commons - The National Planning Policy Framework - Communities and Local Government Committee

The National Planning Policy Framework - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents

3 The brevity and simplicity of the NPPF

What is the purpose of the NPPF?

14. In the NPPF's foreword, the Minister for Decentralisation and Cities, Greg Clark, explains that the purpose of the NPPF is to bring together policies from all existing national planning policy documents into one succinct document:

The NPPF is a document that both guides the writing of Local Plans, and is used as a substitute Local Plan when none has been produced by a local authority.[23] Brevity and simplicity in any document are laudable aims, provided they are not at the price of clarity, effectiveness and comprehensiveness, and do not lead to confusing omissions. Planning policy must be sufficient to guide both developers and decision-makers, and to explain the issues and priorities that should influence decisions on land use. This chapter explores whether the NPPF achieves these aims.

15. Some organisations, most prominently developers, welcomed the streamlining of planning policy.[24] John Rhodes—a member of the Practitioners' Advisory Group (PAG)—highlighted the problems with the volume of the current guidance on planning policy:

He told us that the NPPF is written "in plain English" and is therefore easier to understand than current documentation.[26] Dr Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) told us that:

Another of the four practitioners, Cllr Gary Porter, representing the Local Government Association, agreed that the NPPF is more accessible:

Stuart Hylton of the Planning Officers Society, however, commented that he was

16. Adrian Penfold told us that planning policy and guidance had to change because of the consequences of the Localism Act 2011, with the resulting reduction in Government prescription.[30] He went on to describe the confusion surrounding the NPPF document and asked some rhetorical questions:

17. The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) also identified a confusion about the status of the document: was it a succinct guide to planning for the general public; a technical policy document for practitioners; or a mixture of the two?[32] To address the question of the purpose of the NPPF, RTPI recommended "a stronger narrative" about how the elements fit together in the document, which "might assist us all in navigating our way through the changes and ending up with a workable planning system, with the minimum amount of transitionary turbulence."[33] RTPI pointed out that "the Government needs to be clear what they want on the tin, and the contents of the tin need to match the outside."[34]

18. When asked about the purpose and status of the NPPF document—whether it was a plain English guide to planning policy, a precise technical document or a quasi-legal document—the Minister replied:

How much planning guidance is needed?

19. Cutting Edge Planning and Design drew what we found to be a useful comparison between the draft NPPF and its equivalent policy document in Wales:

It suggested that "[a] better crafted document of 100-150 pages could have set the right balance between brevity and clarity."[37]

20. Many submissions argued that the brevity of the NPPF meant it was lacking in important detail, and that this was more likely to lead to greater uncertainty and delay.[38] We received a range of evidence that highlighted concerns with the NPPF, including the removal of technical guidance. The Confederation of UK Coal Producers pointed out that under the current arrangements "guidance provides specific well-founded, technical advice, which has come to be relied on, [and] its absence could create an area of conflict that does not presently exist."[39] Whether or not the document is easy for the public to understand is a very different question from whether a self-contained NPPF is an adequate tool for planners to use and rely upon.

21. Hampshire County Council summarised concerns that the NPPF had "over-simplified existing policy guidance to such an extent that a great deal of important detail is lacking in a great many areas."[40] While often supporting the aim of streamlining policy in the abstract, many organisations drew our attention to specific policy areas in which they considered the baby to have been thrown out with the bathwater.[41] Barratt Developments plc, for example, stated that "the NPPF reduces affordable housing guidance to a single bullet point and a definition in the glossary. This appears insufficient for such an important subject."[42] Other evidence expressed regret at the loss of detail in Planning Policy Statements relating to a range of issues which included housing, transport, open space and sport, renewable energy and the historic environment.[43]

22. This raises the issue of the status of the NPPF in relation to other relevant national policy documents, such as The Plan for Growth and the Natural Environment White Paper, and whether the Framework is meant to stand alone as the sole source of national policy on planning and development or whether it is, in fact, one of a suite of such documents. Dr Hugh Ellis, Chief Planner at the Town and Country Planning Association, wanted a clearer statement of the relationship between the NPPF and National Policy Statements:

23. We welcome the fact that the Minister is receptive to specific suggestions for improvements to the NPPF. We consider that there needs to be a clear narrative at the start of the NPPF, stating: where planning policy has stayed the same, but has been simplified or summarised; where new policy has been introduced; where current policy has been changed or removed; and the relationship of the NPPF to other national policy documents, including National Policy Statements and the Natural Environment White Paper. There is no harm in increasing the length of the document moderately, if that results in a more comprehensive and less ambiguous document.

Clarity and terminology

24. RTPI highlighted what it considered were inconsistencies in the NPPF's terminology and suggested that "particular effort must be given to ensuring that the wording of policies was technically precise to avoid misinterpretations."[45] It cited the use of different adjectives used to describe the word 'weight', in different and sometimes competing contexts:

25. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management cited specific inexact uses of words in the Framework:

26. Others considered certain terms used in the document to be ambiguous and poorly defined—terms such as 'substantial harm', 'viable', 'medium term', 'positive contribution', 'significantly and demonstrably' and 'severe'.[48] Sir Simon Jenkins, Chair of the National Trust, summed up these concerns:

27. The fear of "planning by appeal" was highlighted in evidence[50], with Hampshire County Council writing that the bias towards economic factors in the NPPF will

London Councils highlighted that the ambiguity in the NPPF's language would lead to different interpretations and therefore inevitable, and costly appeals, "which in a time of reduced resources, having to pay for planning appeals may threaten the ability of local authorities to properly resource other important planning functions".[52] Tony Burton, from Civic Voice, told us that, where there is no Local Plan in place, the NPPF allows a developer to propose whatever they want to do "and go to appeal, which is what the NPPF allows".[53]

28. The Government needs to study the different alternative suggestions, and produce another draft that is more precise and better defined; the NPPF may not be statue law, but its content is still justiciable and it is important to get it right. The Government should not treat the NPPF as if the number of pages in it were more a mark of its quality than the utility, clarity and consistency of the policies within it. Nor can all planning policy necessarily be reduced to very simple terms.

29. Brevity and simplicity are to be applauded in any document. However, we consider that the NPPF does not achieve clarity by its brevity; critical wording has been lost and what remains is often unhelpfully vague. If the NPPF is to be a document that assists with practical decision-making, rather than a lawyers' charter or an easy-to-read guide to the planning system, its drafting must be more precise and consistent, and sufficiently detailed to enable local authorities to write their own Local Plans. The Government should carefully consider the alternative drafts, submitted by many organisations as part of DCLG's consultation, in order to produce a tighter, clearer document, and should not make a fetish of how many pages it is. Examples of such words and phrases needing tighter definitions in the NPPF include: 'significant weight'; 'great weight'; 'substantial weight'; 'considerable weight'; 'significant flexibility'; 'a high degree of certainty'; 'sustainable economic growth'; 'absent'; 'silent'; 'indeterminate'; 'out-of-date'; 'certificate of conformity', 'where practical'; and 'where reasonable'.

Additional guidance

30. A key to dissipating the confusion that has surrounded the draft NPPF is to what extent it provides guidance as well as policy. The Minerals Products Association highlighted that the different roles of guidance and policy have been interchanged in the document:

John Rhodes told us that the Practitioners' Advisory Group thought that planning guidance was part of what they saw as a problem in the planning process:

31. The accompanying Impact Assessment of the NPPF states that there will be

Several submissions highlighted the risks involved in external bodies formulating additional guidance.[57] For example, Barratt Developments plc said that:

We support the view that the Government needs to take ownership of key additional guidance that is produced on aspects of planning policy, to avoid competing bodies producing guidance to support their own aims, or contradictory guidance.[59] We note that while most organisations broadly supported the aim of reducing the overall length of current policy, many of them asked for the retention of specific policies in the areas of most interest to them. This indicates that those familiar with, and needing to use, policy on particular topics find a certain amount of detail and guidance helpful.

32. When asked about additional planning guidance being available to local authorities, the Minister described the status of current and future guidance:

33. At least until new guidance is produced, the continuing relevance and force of the body of current planning guidance under the NPPF needs to be clarified and secured. We recommend that once the NPPF is published, all guidance and advice documents be reviewed by DCLG—in consultation with local authorities—item by item, so that the content of the documents that local authorities find operationally and technically useful can be retained for reference in some form, lest councils spend valuable time reinventing numerous wheels. New guidance produced by third parties or groups of practitioners should have government ownership, to ensure consistency of approach.

34. An additional confusion is that the Government's publicly-stated position that unsustainable development should not be approved is not, in fact, precisely reflected in the draft NPPF.

35. It is highlighted in the Government's Easier to read summary - draft National Planning Policy Framework:

36. The draft NPPF simply states that development should not be allowed if its adverse impact would "significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in this Framework taken as a whole".[62]

37. The Government should focus on arriving at consistent and succinct wording on this issue, clearly identified as such and within the NPPF. The Government's documents relating to the NPPF risk creating confusion. Any such ambiguities must be resolved within the document itself, as supporting statements made to explain or moderate its meaning are unlikely to remain reference sources in the years ahead.

Policy topics not included in the NPPF

38. The brevity of the draft NPPF compared to the body of planning guidance it replaces caused anxiety for groups who believed that as a result their areas of interest were no longer adequately represented in national policy. Such groups feared that absence from national policy would downgrade appreciation of those planning topics, cause local planners to overlook particular community assets, or introduce uncertainty about the weight such assets should be accorded in planning or decision-making.[63] Tony Burton, Director of Civic Voice, explained the root of these concerns, arguing that, in areas not covered by an up-to-date plan, unless it can be shown that a proposed development will cause "significant harm" to some asset, feature or amenity which is explicitly acknowledged in the NPPF, "it is pretty much a free-for-all."[64] Mr Burton spoke of the need, therefore, for "the safety net of a reference in the NPPF."[65]

39. A significant number of the submissions we received, for example, drew attention to the lack of specific references to culture and the arts in the draft NPPF.[66] The Theatres Trust regretted that PPS4's reference to the importance of culture and other uses such as theatres and concert halls in relation to the vitality of town centres was not replicated in the draft NPPF, despite other PPS4 policies being incorporated.[67] Mhora Samuel, Chief Executive of the Trust, suggested that the section of the Framework on sustainable communities, which refers to open space, recreation and sport "could very easily incorporate the words 'culture' and 'cultural uses' and therefore offer clarity to local planners."[68] She argued that there was precedent for such an addition in a Government amendment to the Localism Bill, which clarified that assets of community value could be defined according to cultural, recreational or sporting interests, under the broader category of "social interests".[69] The definition of sustainable development set out in the 2005 UK Sustainable Development Strategy also referred to cultural activities.[70]

40. By replacing voluminous planning policy with a much shorter document, and then establishing that this document will be used to determine planning decisions in the absence of a Local Plan or in the event that a Local Plan is silent on a particular issue, the Government has given many interest groups cause for concern. Unless their areas of interest and certain well-established policies are referred to explicitly in the text of the NPPF, they understandably feel that the new system puts important community assets at the mercy of the presumption in favour of sustainable development. We conclude that without lengthening the Framework excessively it should be possible for the Government to allay fears about a lack of detail and omissions from the NPPF, by cross-referencing other documents and by adopting a more inclusive definition of sustainable development. The revised NPPF should also reassure local authorities that they are permitted to take into account in their Local Plans issues that are not explicitly referred to in the Framework.

41. While the general thrust of the Report is about the wider planning issues, we received strong representations on specific issues and we have concerns about some unintended consequences arising from the wording used in the draft NPPF or the omission of an issue from the document. For example, the definition of affordable housing in the draft NPPF is different from that contained in PPS3: rather than referring to a cost low enough for households to afford, in the context of local incomes and local house prices, it refers to housing where eligibility is determined with regard to local incomes and house prices. Shelter pointed out that this could result in a scenario where housing is considered affordable if its eligibility is determined by income, even if it is unaffordable to people of average or below average incomes.[71] In such cases, it must be clear whether the Government intended to make a change, or whether the draft Framework has simply imperfectly reflected continuing policy. We do not support the change in the definition of affordable housing represented by the wording in the draft NPPF. We recommend that the current definition of 'affordable housing', contained in Planning Policy Statement 3, be reiterated in the draft NPPF to avoid any confusion.

42. On the consequences of an omission, Civic Voice pointed out that the word "amenity" does not appear in the draft Framework, a term which could be a useful "catch-all" for facilities or features of value to the community that are not otherwise referred to in the NPPF.[72] The Theatres Trust similarly argued that "the presumption will be in favour of those uses that are covered within the NPPF."[73] Several submissions addressed the treatment of sport and leisure facilities in the draft NPPF.[74] The Football Association's principal concern was that the position of Sport England as a statutory consultee on planning applications which affect provision for sports be confirmed and referred to in the NPPF; Robert Sullivan, the FA's Head of Public Affairs, told us that they would like Sport England's role to be explicitly mentioned to, in order "to reassure people in the sporting communities that those protections can still be maintained."[75] As it stands, the FA argued that the reforms "place playing fields and facilities at great risk, in favour of broader development aspirations."[76] Sport England deprecated the loss of a requirement for replacement sports facilities to be provided if they are lost to development, even where a deficiency exists, provided the "the need for and benefits of the development clearly outweigh the loss."[77] Mr Sullivan argued that this change of policy was unnecessary, as the development industry was already accommodating of the need to factor in like-for-like replacement of facilities where need exists.[78]

43. The NPPF should refer to the role of statutory consultees as a safeguard for community amenities, such as playing fields. We recommend also that the revised Framework should reinstate the requirement for equivalent or improved replacement sports facilities to be provided if they are lost to development, where a deficiency would otherwise result. We consider that the Government needs to examine whether there are unintended consequences arising from the wording used in the draft NPPF or the omission of an issue from the document. The Government should review the NPPF as a whole, to check that there are no other relevant, specific issues that are either omitted or adversely affected by the changes in the Framework.

Spatial planning

44. Some witnesses thought that a spatial element would contradict local decision making in the NPPF. Professor Paul Cheshire argued that "it is profoundly to misunderstand how the space economy works to think that land use planning should or can redress the problems of less prosperous regions."[79] The British Chambers of Commerce and the CBI were concerned that "injecting some sort of top-down spatial element" would undermine the Government's localist intentions.[80] Dr. Marshall, from the BCC, told us that "you could have a hierarchy of development principles across geographical areas and it is the centralist position that predominates. That would constrain local decision making much more than just about anything else."[81] However, he went on to say that "I have some sympathy with those who say that planning that goes above local authority level but below national level can get lost."[82]

45. Several organisations expressed regret in their written submissions that the Government had decided not to incorporate a spatial element into the draft NPPF.[83] Some pointed out that The Plan for Growth had identified geographical imbalance as one of the major economic problems facing the country, with growth concentrated in the South East and other parts of the country increasingly reliant on public sector employment.[84] From this perspective, the lack of a spatial dimension to the NPPF seemed "a missed opportunity", and unlikely to support the commitment to share prosperity across the UK.[85] RTPI commented that the Framework offers no guide to locating new infrastructure in relation to new areas of growth.[86] Stephen Joseph of the Campaign for Better Transport argued that England would be exceptional in not seeking to integrate major new transport infrastructure with spatial planning, and that this would undermine, for example, the regeneration potential of High Speed 2.[87]

46. The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) stated that the document "seems largely 'placeless'."[88] ICE noted in particular that the words 'city' and 'cities' did not appear in the draft NPPF. There are other special cases which are not acknowledged, such as the particular circumstances in National Parks, where specialised government policy applies.[89] Dr Hugh Ellis of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) told us that "this document is not written with any spatial awareness" and explained why he felt this approach was flawed:[90]

47. There is evidence of concern that the draft NPPF is largely "placeless". While we recognise that it was never the intention of the Government to issue the draft NPPF as a 'spatial' plan, we consider that its impact and effectiveness would be improved if the possibility of differential impacts of its policies on different parts of the country were to be recognised in the Framework and that, where a local authority seeks to recognise local variations, the NPPF encourages local authorities to ensure that there is a robust evidence base in place to justify these variations, and thus, that it serves the Government's stated intention to re-balance the national economy.

22 Draft NPPF, p 2 Back

23 Draft NPPF, para 26 Back

24 Ev w67 [Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd]; Ev w158 [County Councils Network]; Ev w187 [The Federation of Master Builders]; Ev w247; Qq 2, 8 Back

25 Ev 84 Back

26 Q 34 Back

27 Q 2 Back

28 Q 134 Back

29 As above Back

30 Q 275 Back

32 Ev 152 Back

33 Q 275 Back

34 Q 282 Back