Introduction
In this blog post, we discuss the most recent bombardment of planning announcements from the Government containing their latest proposals for reforming the planning system. To discuss all these announcements in detail would take a very long time so we have just provided a quick summary below of what we consider to be the most significant announcements, including links to where you can obtain further detailed information.
Long-term plan for housing
On 24 July 2023, Michael Gove the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced the Government’s long-term plan for housing delivery and regeneration across England. This came ‘hot on the heels’ of the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement the same day that the Government will meet its manifesto commitment to build 1 million homes over this Parliament.
Full details on the Secretary of State’s long-term plan for housing can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/long-term-plan-for-housing
The main proposals under the plan are as follows:
- Building on its existing commitment in the Levelling Up White Paper to regenerate 20 towns and cities, the Government has announced the regeneration of a further 3 English cities, being Cambridge, central London and central Leeds. The Government has also outlined plans to make Barrow a new powerhouse of the North.
- £800 million will be allocated by the Government from the £1.5 billion Brownfield, Infrastructure and Land fund to unlock up to 56,000 new homes on brownfield sites.
- There will be a new fund of £24 million to scale up local planning capacity, and an additional £13.5 million to stand up a new “super-squad” of planning experts to support large scale development projects.
- The Government has confirmed its commitment to development and regeneration in and around existing town and city centres and wants to make it easier to progress such developments, and to that end has stated that:
- Development should proceed on sites that are adopted in a local plan with full input from the local community, unless there are strong reasons why it cannot.
- Local councils should be open and pragmatic in agreeing changes to developments where conditions mean that the original plan may no longer be viable, rather than losing the development wholesale or seeing development mothballed.
- Better use should be made of small pockets of brownfield land by being more permissive, so more homes can be built more quickly, where and how it makes sense, giving more confidence and certainty to SME builders.
The Government has also confirmed its intention that later in the year it will pass the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill currently before Parliament to put in place its reforms to the planning system and that it will also publish updates to the National Planning Policy Framework.
We discuss other proposals under the Government’s long-term plan for housing relating to planning applications fee increases and changes to permitted development rights under the further headings below.
Planning applications fee increase
The Government is proposing to increase the amount developers pay in planning fees to ensure all local authority planning departments are better resourced. On 20 July draft regulations were laid in Parliament to introduce a national planning fee increase of 35% for major applications and 25% for all other applications, including an indexation mechanism to allow for annual inflation-related adjustments in the future. The regulations also remove the ‘free-go’ for repeat applications and reduce the Planning Guarantee for non-major applications from 26 weeks to 16 weeks.
A copy of the draft regulations can be viewed at the following link:
https://statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk/instrument/WRQVzdcA
Consultation on changes to Permitted Development Rights
On 24 July 2023 the Government launched a consultation on proposed changes to permitted development rights to introduce additional flexibilities to support housing delivery, the agricultural sector, businesses, high streets and open prisons.
The consultation paper can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/permitted-development-rights
The consultation includes the following proposed changes to permitted development rights:
- Changes to certain permitted development rights that allow for the change of use to dwellinghouses
- Changes to certain permitted development rights that allow agricultural diversification and development on agricultural units
- Changes to certain permitted development rights that allow for non-domestic extensions and the erection of new industrial and warehouse buildings
- Changes to the permitted development right that allows for the temporary use of land to allow markets to operate for more days
- Changes to the existing permitted development right that allows for the erection, extension or alteration of schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, and closed prisons to also apply to open prisons
- The application of local design codes to certain permitted development rights.
Consultation on reforms to local plan-making
On 25 July 2023, the Government launched a consultation on its proposals to introduce reforms to local plan-making under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
The consultation paper can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/plan-making-reforms-consultation-on-implementation
The Government’s vision is for local plans to be simpler to engage with and use, faster to prepare, and updated more often, with better opportunities for communities to shape the way their area meets its needs and evolves over time. Plans will need to show, more transparently, what is planned in local areas and there is also an ambition to bring plan making into the digital age by providing more accessible plans and policies.
Note: all comments and views expressed in this blog are merely opinions and provided for information purposes only and do not constitute legal advice which can be relied upon. Should you require legal advice on a matter then please contact us
