Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make an assessment of the (a) social and (b) other effects on rural areas of paragraph 49 of the National Planning Policy Framework.

Local councils are best placed to understand and plan for the housing needs of their area. Where the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies, for example in the absence of a five year supply of deliverable housing sites, decisions will still need to be made in the light of all the policies in the National Planning Policy Framework, including policies that indicate development should be restricted. However, an up-to-date Local Plan, which includes a five year supply of development housing sites, is the best way to manage development in an area.