Respond to the NPPF consultation.

You can use the following standard text to respond to the NPPF consultation:

Please send your email to:

PlanningPolicyConsultation@levellingup.gov.uk

Don’t forget to include your name and address in the email.

Dear Sir or Madam,

PlanningPolicyConsultation@levellingup.gov.uk

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to this consultation. I welcome the overall shift in emphasis towards communities and seek much more of this in the forthcoming consultations. Earlier and more effective engagement with communities will lead to a less confrontational planning system.

My specific comments are:

The changes to housing targets, to make them ‘advisory’, are very welcome. However, we remind you that Government continues to insist on using out-of-date projections (2014) and we urge an immediate change to guidance to insist (as previously) on most up-to-date projections. We also seek a review of the Standard Method, which does not make housing affordable and simply supports developers to build market homes where they want to.

• I strongly support the changes proposed to paragraph 11 and the five-year housing supply. It is essential that councils can plan, instead of being subject to speculative development & planning by appeal.
• ‘JUSTIFIED’ must be reinstated as a soundness test in plan-making – a local authority must be able to demonstrate why it has chosen a strategy and to support it with appropriate evidence.
• Mentions of brownfield, farmland, climate and density are welcomed. However, this needs to go further:
  • Brownfield first policy (when suitable)
  • Protection for BMV in policy, not footnote
  • Climate – carbon impact assessment for local plans essential
  • Gentle or goldilocks density first
  • Environment – the six focus areas must be clearly set out in NDMPs and NPPF and linked to Government’s environmental announcement January 2023.

Yours faithfully,