The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The coalition agreement states that the Government will publish and present to Parliament a simple and consolidated national planning framework that covers all forms of development and sets out national economic, environmental and social priorities.
The planning system is vital to the re-building of Britain’s economy. We need to reinvigorate our construction and development industries and the investment that goes with them and to ensure that we develop and protect our national assets. We need a planning system which encourages the idea that development can positively benefit a community. We need a planning system that enables local people to shape their surroundings in a way that, while heeding national objectives and constraints, is also sensitive to the history and character of a given location. We need participation and social engagement enabling communities to formulate a positive vision of their future development.
The Localism Bill sets out a legislative framework for achieving these goals.
The Government have made it clear that with the exception of nationally important projects, planning should be a local matter. The role of central Government is to determine and define environmental, economic and social priorities for the country and design a planning system which helps ensure a pattern of development that matches these priorities and local aspiration. This role is currently fulfilled through legislation, and through the suite of planning policy guidance notes (PPGs) and minerals policy guidance notes (MPGs), and more recently planning policy statements (PPSs) and minerals policy statements (MPSs).
These documents, which run to over 1,000 pages, set out central Government policy on various aspects of development and land use to local planning authorities, who must legally have regard to them when drawing up their local development frameworks. They are also often relevant to making decisions on planning applications. They cover broad policy themes such as planning aspects of climate change, housing, renewable energy, flood risk, green belt and waste, and also procedural themes such as how to compile local development plans.
The Government believe that the current suite of planning policy statements and guidance notes is too centralist in its approach, and too long and cumbersome for councils and developers to use effectively. There is no over-arching integrated statement of the Government’s priorities for the country and the role which planning can play in delivering them.
Therefore the Government will produce a simple national planning policy framework setting out their priorities for the planning system in England in a single, concise document covering all major forms of development proposals handled by local authorities. All the national planning policies set out in PPSs, MPSs, PPGs and MPGs, will be integrated into a single document.
The national planning policy framework will set out the Government’s views on how the planning system in England can contribute to the delivery of a prosperous, competitive and attractive country based on the values of freedom, fairness and responsibility. The framework will set broad economic, environmental and social priorities and how they relate to each other, but will ensure that the majority of planning decisions are made at the local level, with the minimum of interference from Whitehall. The framework will also set out a strong basis for economic growth, a presumption in favour of sustainable development, as well as any further policy needed to establish and implement neighbourhood plans.
The Government will apply the following principles when considering what the framework should contain. The framework will be:
localist in its approach, handing power back to local communities to decide what is right for them;
used as a mechanism for delivering Government objectives only where it is relevant, proportionate and effective to do so; and
user-friendly and accessible, providing clear policies on making robust local and neighbourhood plans and development management decisions.
In the past, Governments have issued vast swathes of non-statutory guidance in addition to policy. However, such guidance can unintentionally take on a force which constrains rather than helps practitioners and users on the ground. This Government, therefore, believe that we should keep central Government guidance to a minimum. Accordingly, the Government will radically reduce the amount of guidance they issue and will work to withdraw or shorten existing guidance wherever they can.
The Government will publish and consult on a draft of the new national planning policy framework in 2011. We will invite Parliament to hold a Select Committee inquiry on the framework during the consultation period, so that it is subjected to additional democratic scrutiny.
For the time being national policy statements (which are separate statutory documents published in accordance with the Planning Act 2008, setting out the Government’s policy on major infrastructure projects such as nuclear power stations and ports) will not be included in the framework. Further detail on our approach to major infrastructure is set out in the work plan on major infrastructure planning reform which I am also publishing today. Copies of the work plan have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and are available on the Department’s website:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/planningsystem/planningpolicy/planningpolicyframework
This Government have a commitment to greater transparency and openness in developing their policy. To begin the process of writing the framework, therefore, and in advance of formal consultation on a draft, I invite organisations and individuals to offer their suggestions to the Department on what priorities and policies we might adopt to produce a shorter, more decentralised and less bureaucratic national planning policy framework. Details of how to do so have been placed on the Department for Communities and Local Government website. I would be pleased to receive proposals by 28 February 2011. The Department will also organise a number of roundtable discussions with key organisations to promote debate on the framework.