It's out! The new National Planning Policy Framework

[BAJR]

http://www.communities.gov.uk/statements...om/2115446

National Planning Policy Framework

Mr Speaker I would like to make a statement about planning policy.

I am delighted today to be publishing the National Planning Policy Framework and our response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee Report of the 21 December 2011.
Our reforms to planning policy have 3 fundamental objectives:

• To put unprecedented power in the hands of communities to shape the places in which they live;
  
• To better support growth to give the next generation the chance that our generation has had to have a decent home, and to allow the jobs to be created on which our prosperity depends; and
  
• To ensure that the places we cherish - our countryside, towns and cities - are bequeathed to the next generation in a better condition than they are now.
  

To achieve these objectives reform is sorely needed.


A decade of Regional Spatial Strategies, top-down targets and national planning policy guidance that has swelled beyond reason to over 1000 pages across 44 documents, has led to communities seeing planning as something done to them, rather than by them.


And as the planning system has become more complex, it has ground ever slower. In 2004 Parliament required every council to have a plan - eight years on, only around a half have been able to adopt one.


During the last decade - starting long before the financial crisis - we built fewer homes than in any peacetime decade for 100 years.




Read on::
http://www.communities.gov.uk/statements...om/2115446

[Steven]

Hi
Phew...close thing....scared about whole industry crashing....but...yippee see paras. 128, 141 and 169 & 170!
It all could have been a lot worse, I'll be able to enjoy my get home, in garden G&T tonight rather than crying into it.

[kevin wooldridge]

Its no worse than the situation that existed before ....although the paragraph suggesting building on World Heritage sites is a little incongurous. If anything there has to be a number of new posts created in Historic Environment reocrds although whether these will be in public or private practice is an interesting question and whether they will be jobs for archaeologists or planners is another. I would say glass half full.....

[BAJR]

IfA response here:

The Institute for Archaeologists (IfA) is pleased to see that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for England published today addresses a number of the concerns about the treatment of the historic environment raised by it with Government before, during and after the consultation process. They include

• recognition that the historic environment makes a positive contribution to society, the economy, our culture and our environment
  
• removal of the provision that the default answer to development should be ‘yes’
  
• support for Historic Environment Records (and, tacitly, for the dedicated expertise required to support them)
  
• clarity that policies in the Framework relating to decision-taking (including those requiring proper consideration of the impact of proposals on the historic environment) apply to Neighbourhood Development Orders as well as other decisions affecting the historic environment
  
• clear recognition that the impact of a proposed development on the significance of a heritage asset is a material consideration in determining the application
  
• rebalancing the NPPF so that it unambiguously reflects the supremacy of local plans and clearly acknowledges the environmental and social aspects of sustainable development
  
• transitional arrangements in Annex 1 to ensure that there is adequate local plan coverage
  

However, concerns remain, in particular

• the continued emphasis on economic growth without explicit recognition of the equal importance of environmental and social aspects of sustainable development
  
• the continued presence in paragraph 14 of the phrase ‘significantly and demonstrably’ in the presumption in favour of sustainable development unless the adverse effects of development significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. Nonetheless, IfA welcomes the additional rider in paragraph 14 rebutting the presumption where ‘specific policies in the Framework indicate that development should be restricted’ and the implicit recognition that proposals which contravene such policies protecting the historic environment are unsustainable.
  

The Institute’s Chief Executive, Peter Hinton, said
[INDENT] ‘It was essential that the NPPF carried forward the principles of PPS5 to achieve Government’s twin objectives of conserving the historic environment in a sustainable manner and of ensuring wide public benefit from expert investigations of those elements affected by development. While the NPPF may not contain all the provisions we consider necessary to achieve that end, it provides timely support for the historic environment at a time when local authority archaeology and heritage services continue to be under severe pressure. IfA has campaigned hard to ensure that the NPPF has not brought the end of developer-funded archaeology. What we need now is a firm response from Government to those local authorities that mistakenly believe that they can comply with the framework without securing the services of professional historic environment advisors.’
[/INDENT] Tim Howard, IfA Policy Advisor, said
[INDENT] ‘To support the historic environment chapter of the Framework, a Practice Guide must strongly reinforce the importance of archaeological standards and accredited expertise. It must ensure appropriate protection in practice of both designated and undesignated heritage assets proportionate to their significance. Our draft Standard and guidance for archaeological advice by historic environment services fulfils a similar aim and sets out what is required for the management of archaeology under the Framework.’
[/INDENT] IfA will continue to lobby for improvements to the Framework including Government endorsement of supporting guidance.


http://www.archaeologists.net/news/12032...ework-nppf

[P Prentice]

more work for consultants - yipee

[PeterM]

Surprisingly it does seem fairly positive - the devil will be in the detail of interpretation of terms like "substantial" when applied to impact of development.

[Unitof1]

Phew...close thing....scared about whole industry crashing....but...yippee see paras. 128, 141 and 169 & 170! It all could have been a lot worse, I'll be able to enjoy my get home, in garden G&T tonight rather than crying into it.

what you mean is that not a single "planner" will lose their job and possibly you will need more planners or sorry you planners will need to be paid more to enable the "sustainable" bit.

ohhoo it mentions historic environment rhecord carp

[kevin wooldridge]

I guess that Uo1 will now only have to read 50 pages to misunderstand archaeology in the planning process as opposed to the several hundred pages that applied previously....ohhoo!

[vulpes]

If anything there has to be a number of new posts created in Historic Environment reocrds

Unlikely on the strength (or weakness?) of the NPPF and given the ongoing financial strictures faced by local government in general. On HERs it says nothing that PPS5 didn't, although of course it may now enjoy a wider readership than PPS5 by not having to contend with the reams of documentation it supercedes (see pp. 58-9).

[gwyl]

it may now enjoy a wider readership than PPS5 by not having to contend with the reams of documentation it supercedes (see pp. 58-9).

yet.