Thus spake the Housing Minister
Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook was at the housing, communities and local government committee and revealed that the Government plans to consult on proposals for new national development management policies (NDMPs) next year, after which it will publish a “slimmed down” version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) focused solely on plan-making…
Our Matt said the Government had yet to announce a timeline for their introduction, but that he could give the committee “more details next year” when they go out to consultation:
“That will lead to a situation where NDMPs deal with the development control aspects of the planning system and the NPPF is left as essentially a plan making document. It’ll be in a slightly slimmed down form from what it is now… But I just want to be very clear with the committee that it is not the Government’s intention to make very substantive changes to national planning policy in the way we’ve done through this consultation at the point we come to essentially tidy the system up on that basis, but we are looking at what NDMPs can do in terms of streamlining some of the development management control aspects of the system.”
Our Matt was also asked whether he foresaw “lots of planning applications” being called in “when they're recommended for refusal before they've even been heard at the local level at the local councils”. Our Matt then said: “We will make the full use of the intervention powers that are available to ministers… We will make full use of those intervention powers in cases where they meet the published criteria and we think there is a reason to act.”
When asked about the prospect of delivering the 1.5 million homes by the end of this Parliament, our Matt said “The trajectory is an upward one, with large amounts of housebuilding delivery in the later years of the parliament that's why it's important to bear in mind that it’s a whole parliament target of 1.5 [million] rather than an annual target of 300,000… the sector will be able to see over the next year or two whether we've turned the system around and are making progress towards that full parliament target”
Our Matt also told the committee that housing need could not be met “purely on a local level” and that addressing the “missing tier of strategic planning” was a “really important part of the government’s plan” and that the Government’s “lead model at present” for a “more effective mechanism for cross boundary strategic planning” was the introduction of a requirement for authorities to work together to produce spatial development strategies. Where metro mayors are in place, they would be given responsibility for producing these strategies, which would be made mandatory, but he said it was “too early” to say how it would work in non-devolved areas, but that he was “confident” that mandatory strategic planning would be rolled out by the end of this parliament.
Until next week,
Henry