Zara Moon RIBA Chartered Architect & Planning Consultant at ZMA talks about the recent Labour plans to change planning policy in the UK, and what this could mean for your development.
The planning process is a notoriously difficult area to navigate to achieve your development aspirations – ZMA have an exceptional 96% planning success rate and are specialists in sensitive sites.
Labour’s manifesto focused on getting Britain building again – they promised an overhaul of the planning system, increased housing targets and a review of the Green Belt.
Housing Targets
In recent years, and the Conservatives last NPPF amendment, there was a slight relaxation to housing targets. All caveats have now been removed and there are mandatory housing targets for each local authority based on a revised method of calculation essentially increasing the required number of housing.
There is a strong emphasis on affordable housing – with Labour stating they want to create the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation. Affordable housing is still only applicable to major developments (10 or more dwellings, or 0.5 hectares) and will be dictated by the local housing need for the specific area.
This could mean that local authorities which had met their 5 year housing supply needs in recent years – may no longer be able to meet their new targets, which opens the door to new developments. All councils need their local plan in place and will need to identify specific deliverable sites annually.
The next bold change is relating to Green Belt
All local authorities will undertake a Green Belt review to potentially reclassify some areas of the Green Belt to Grey Belt or even remove from the Green Belt.
The first priority will be Previously Developed Land in sustainable locations, the next priority will be Grey Belt land in sustainable locations, and the last priority will be other Green Belt land which are in sustainable locations.
This will allow more development opportunities on land which previously would never be supported by planning policy.
However, where Green Belt land is released for development and is for a major development – 50% affordable housing will need to be provided.
Another important change is Paragraph 151 which lists the Green Belt exceptions. Exception g) relates to limited infilling or the partial or complete redevelopment of Previously Developed Land. The exception no longer needs ‘to have no greater impact on the Openness than the existing development’ and instead the development ‘should not cause substantial impact to the openness of the Green Belt.’
This could now mean that the development, scale and volume is not defined by the existing development on the site – and proposals now only need to demonstrate there would be no ‘substantial impact’.
Grey Belt
The new land classification of ‘Grey Belt’ is ‘Land in the Green Belt comprising Previously Devevloped Land and any other parcels of land / or areas of the Green Belt land that make a limited contribution to the 5 Green Belt purposes.’
This could essentially mean development on Green Belt land can now be justified if a plot doesn’t particularly contribute to the 5 purposes of Green Belt.
Grey Belt land in sustainable locations will be supported for housing, commercial and other developments.
Supporting the economy
Commercial development and expansion or modernisation of businesses is now included to support economic development. As well as mixed tenure sites providing community facilities and a variety of housing types to meet people’s various needs – aiming to develop strong communities and sustainable developments.
Removing the term ‘beautiful’
As Architects which value the importance of high-quality design and how design has the potential to improve lives – we feel the removal of all references to ‘beautiful’ when describing developments and places seems completely unnecessary. The previous NPPF revisions by the Conservatives introduced this term which was welcomed by many, as it prevented low quality, poorly designed schemes being approved.
If development is going to increase, in particular on large-scale housing sites and social housing – quantity can still mean quality. Whilst the word ‘beautiful’ is subjective, developments need to still be context-driven, use high quality materials and work for the end user. Removing the word beautiful could result in mass housing that doesn’t need to look attractive.
The draft NPPF consultation period has now commenced with the final NPPF potentially being implemented by the end of the year – more updates to follow in our future articles.
If you have a potential development and want to understand how the revisions could assist your scheme, book a consultation with Zara to discuss your development aspirations.
Zara Moon RIBA Chartered Architect & Planning Consultant at ZMA talks about the recent Labour plans to change planning policy in the UK, and what this could mean for your development.
The planning process is a notoriously difficult area to navigate to achieve your development aspirations – ZMA have an exceptional 96% planning success rate and are specialists in sensitive sites.
Labour’s manifesto focused on getting Britain building again – they promised an overhaul of the planning system, increased housing targets and a review of the Green Belt.
Housing Targets
In recent years, and the Conservatives last NPPF amendment, there was a slight relaxation to housing targets. All caveats have now been removed and there are mandatory housing targets for each local authority based on a revised method of calculation essentially increasing the required number of housing.
There is a strong emphasis on affordable housing – with Labour stating they want to create the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation. Affordable housing is still only applicable to major developments (10 or more dwellings, or 0.5 hectares) and will be dictated by the local housing need for the specific area.
This could mean that local authorities which had met their 5 year housing supply needs in recent years – may no longer be able to meet their new targets, which opens the door to new developments. All councils need their local plan in place and will need to identify specific deliverable sites annually.
The next bold change is relating to Green Belt
All local authorities will undertake a Green Belt review to potentially reclassify some areas of the Green Belt to Grey Belt or even remove from the Green Belt.
The first priority will be Previously Developed Land in sustainable locations, the next priority will be Grey Belt land in sustainable locations, and the last priority will be other Green Belt land which are in sustainable locations.
This will allow more development opportunities on land which previously would never be supported by planning policy.
However, where Green Belt land is released for development and is for a major development – 50% affordable housing will need to be provided.
Another important change is Paragraph 151 which lists the Green Belt exceptions. Exception g) relates to limited infilling or the partial or complete redevelopment of Previously Developed Land. The exception no longer needs ‘to have no greater impact on the Openness than the existing development’ and instead the development ‘should not cause substantial impact to the openness of the Green Belt.’
This could now mean that the development, scale and volume is not defined by the existing development on the site – and proposals now only need to demonstrate there would be no ‘substantial impact’.
Grey Belt
The new land classification of ‘Grey Belt’ is ‘Land in the Green Belt comprising Previously Devevloped Land and any other parcels of land / or areas of the Green Belt land that make a limited contribution to the 5 Green Belt purposes.’
This could essentially mean development on Green Belt land can now be justified if a plot doesn’t particularly contribute to the 5 purposes of Green Belt.
Grey Belt land in sustainable locations will be supported for housing, commercial and other developments.
Grey Belt
The new land classification of ‘Grey Belt’ is ‘Land in the Green Belt comprising Previously Devevloped Land and any other parcels of land / or areas of the Green Belt land that make a limited contribution to the 5 Green Belt purposes.’
This could essentially mean development on Green Belt land can now be justified if a plot doesn’t particularly contribute to the 5 purposes of Green Belt.
Grey Belt land in sustainable locations will be supported for housing, commercial and other developments.
Supporting the economy
Commercial development and expansion or modernisation of businesses is now included to support economic development. As well as mixed tenure sites providing community facilities and a variety of housing types to meet people’s various needs – aiming to develop strong communities and sustainable developments.
Removing the term ‘beautiful’
As Architects which value the importance of high-quality design and how design has the potential to improve lives – we feel the removal of all references to ‘beautiful’ when describing developments and places seems completely unnecessary. The previous NPPF revisions by the Conservatives introduced this term which was welcomed by many, as it prevented low quality, poorly designed schemes being approved.
If development is going to increase, in particular on large-scale housing sites and social housing – quantity can still mean quality. Whilst the word ‘beautiful’ is subjective, developments need to still be context-driven, use high quality materials and work for the end user. Removing the word beautiful could result in mass housing that doesn’t need to look attractive.
Supporting the economy
Commercial development and expansion or modernisation of businesses is now included to support economic development. As well as mixed tenure sites providing community facilities and a variety of housing types to meet people’s various needs – aiming to develop strong communities and sustainable developments.
Removing the term ‘beautiful’
As Architects which value the importance of high-quality design and how design has the potential to improve lives – we feel the removal of all references to ‘beautiful’ when describing developments and places seems completely unnecessary. The previous NPPF revisions by the Conservatives introduced this term which was welcomed by many, as it prevented low quality, poorly designed schemes being approved.
If development is going to increase, in particular on large-scale housing sites and social housing – quantity can still mean quality. Whilst the word ‘beautiful’ is subjective, developments need to still be context-driven, use high quality materials and work for the end user. Removing the word beautiful could result in mass housing that doesn’t need to look attractive.
The draft NPPF consultation period has now commenced with the final NPPF potentially being implemented by the end of the year – more updates to follow in our future articles.
If you have a potential development and want to understand how the revisions could assist your scheme, book a consultation with Zara to discuss your development aspirations.
