The UK Government has published its response to their NPPF Consultation.

CIHT's submission to the consultation on proposed amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) said that reforms should not only support an increase in the quantity of houses being built, but also ensuring that quality, sustainable developments were being delivered in the appropriate locations.

Along with answering the government’s specific questions, CIHT made three clear calls summarising our response: 

• The NPPF should be clearer on what it means by ‘sustainable development’, with a stronger emphasis on sustainable transport; 

• Stronger clarity is needed on grey belt development which would ensure that ‘grey belt’ land taken from the green belt has adequate provision for, and potential to improve, sustainable transport accessibility; 

• Further and immediate changes are needed to ensure that the speed and scale of government house building targets will not worsen poorly located development patterns. 

CIHT is pleased the see that the government has been receptive to these calls.

CIHT welcomes the government’s response to the consultation, which promises that there can be no trade-off between supply and quality: 

The imperative of rapidly driving up planning consents in the context of a system with inadequate local plan coverage will increase the number of permissions secured outside of plan allocations, but we are clear that there can be no trade-off between supply and quality – indeed, as we act to allocate more land for development, we expect it to be delivered quickly and to a higher quality.

The government has provided stronger clarity on grey belt development by including a clear statement that development brought forward on Green Belt land, or on land released from the Green Belt, should be sustainable, and in line with the requirements to promote sustainable transport. Its response makes clear that responses have been considered carefully and changes made as a result. 

The government has provided further clarity on sustainability, making explicit reference to the importance of promoting sustainable transport in assessing the sustainability of locations for development.

Our response made several suggestions proposing explicit references to Chapter 9 of the NPPF, which covers the promotion of sustainable transport, throughout the rest of the NPPF as a key step to ensuring closer integration of transport considerations into planning policy. The Government has included newly added references to Chapter 9 in the NPPF, which are welcome and mark a positive step towards better integration of planning and transport.  

CIHT believe that the outcome of the consultation has resulted in positive amendments to the NPPF, with a number of calls made by CIHT being incorporated into the latest version.

However, there is still a way to go ensure that the NPPF fully embraces the integration of transport and planning to ensure that housing development meets the needs of people, not cars. 

CIHT looks forward to engaging with the Ministry for Housing, Communities, and Local Government and working to deliver a transport network that works for all.

By Liberty Hibberd