Comment
Transitional arrangements – What does the consultation draft NPPF mean in practice for Local Plan making?
The election of the new Labour Government in July 2024 was quickly followed by proposed planning reforms, with the intention being to publish the new Framework later this year. A key focus of these reforms relates to housing need, and ensuring that this is met through Local Plans. Will the proposed amendments result in positive movements? Director, David Murray-Cox and Planner, Emily Rickard explore the proposed ‘transitional arrangements’ and their implications, with a focus on the specific impacts in the South East of England.
Alongside the draft NPPF, published in late July 2024, the Secretary of State’s (SoS) Written Ministerial Statement of 30 July 2024 set out the intention that there should be universal plan coverage as soon as possible, and in any event by the end of the Parliament. The same point was made in the SoS’s letter of the same date to Local Planning Authorities.
The message is clear: get a Plan in place. However, it sits alongside another clear expectation: that housing needs are addressed.
The draft NPPF seeks to increase levels of housing delivery, aligned with the Government’s aspirations for the delivery of 1.5 million homes over the next five years (underpinned by revised standard method requirement for around 370,000 homes per annum). The overall aim in the draft NPPF shifts to meeting an area’s identified need (as opposed to as much of it as possible[1]), with a renewed emphasis on meeting needs from neighbouring areas.
As with previous incarnations of the NPPF, this consultation draft contains ‘transitional arrangements’[2] to be applied where Local Plans have reached a certain stage.
There are a number of examples where local authorities are now speeding up plan-making to avoid the need to address the increased requirements of the revised standard method, for example, where advanced plans provide for more than 200 dwellings per annum (dpa) below the standard method. There are also a number of authorities at early stages of the plan-making process where they will now have to provide for much more housing than they had previously anticipated.
Let’s explore the effect of those arrangements.
What do the ‘transitional arrangements’ mean in practice?
Plans at Examination
Within the South East of England, there are a number of authorities with Local Plans at examination which, if adopted, would need to “commence plan-making under the new plan-making system at the earliest opportunity”[3] because the Plan includes an annual requirement that is more than 200 dwellings lower than the Local Housing Need figure. These include the Local Plans:
- For Elmbridge (one of the least affordable areas outside London), where the draft Plan now appears to make provision (following concessions during the Examination) for less than 50% or the standard method as it was at the time the Plan was submitted. The standard method, as proposed, in that Authority is now substantially higher, so, even if that draft Plan were adopted, the forthcoming review would need to grapple with a significantly different figure.
- In Horsham, where the draft Local Plan, as submitted, already proposed significantly fewer homes than sought by the current standard method (on account of perceived issues regarding water neutrality). Here, the proposed standard method results in a figure of 1,294 dpa. However the Plan progresses, this will be an interesting situation to monitor in relation to the perceived ability of an area to accommodate growth (from an environmental perspective) and whether enough has been done to find solutions to meet housing needs.
Plans not yet at Examination
Despite the fact that the content of the NPPF remains draft and subject to change, there are a number of instances where the proposed transitional arrangements might provide a clear impetus for an authority to bring forward a Regulation 19 consultation in the coming months and/or expedite the submission of the Plan for examination sooner than might otherwise have occurred. These include the Local Plans for:
- Wokingham, where delaying the Regulation 19 consultation / submission could result in an increased requirement of over 500 dpa (compared to a consultation in 2020) (the draft Plan is due to be considered at Full Council on 19 September 2024).
- South Oxfordshire/the Vale of White Horse, where delaying the Regulation 19 consultation / submission could result in an increased requirement of over 650 dpa (compared to the 2024 consultation). A revised Local Development Scheme (LDS), dated August 2024[4] assumes the Plan will be submitted in December 2024, rather than in May 2025 as in the previous iteration, presumably in response to the proposed transitional arrangements in paragraph 226c of the draft NPPF. Submission in May 2025 would mean that the Plan would fail the arrangements in paragraph 226a.
- Wiltshire, where submitting the Local Plan in December 2024 (as envisaged in the latest LDS) means that the Plan could proceed under paragraph 226c, despite planning for more than 1,400 dwellings dpa below the proposed standard method.
- St Albans, an authority where the current Plan dates from 1994, proceeding with the Plan as per the Regulation 19 version (currently published for consultation) results in a requirement 656 dpa below the proposed standard method.
- Winchester City Council where, at an extraordinary meeting on 28 August 2024, it was agreed that the Regulation 19 consultation would be published, despite planning for more than 200 dwellings below the proposed standard method (1,099 dpa). During the course that meeting, Members were informed that although proceeding under these transitional arrangements would allow it to ‘maintain control of the planning situation’, the Council would ‘immediately’ have to begin work on the ‘very difficult decisions’ to accommodate the requirements of the revised standard method.
Early-stage Plans
Many Local Plans are at an early stage of preparation and will (subject to the details of the final NPPF), need to progress in line with the revised Framework.
The case of the Buckinghamshire-wide Plan is of particular interest. This is an Authority which was, as a result of local Government reorganisation, due to adopt a new Local Plan in 2025. That Plan has been subject to numerous delays over recent years (including to await changes to national policy in 2023), with the latest Local Development Scheme envisaging adoption in 2027. The current standard method for the area is 2,912 dpa, whereas the proposed standard method results in a figure of 4,122 dpa.
That authority could have progressed its Local Plan under the current or previous iterations of the Framework but elected not to do so. Had it done so, the requirement would likely be substantially lower, with a reduced emphasis on meeting needs and releasing land from the Green Belt (of which there is much in Buckinghamshire) and with lower expectations that the needs of neighbouring authorities should be addressed. If the requirement in Buckinghamshire remains 4,122 dpa, the unmet needs from Slough remain as previously expected (and cannot be addressed elsewhere), Buckinghamshire Council may be left to prepare a Local Plan which provides for close to 80,000 homes over an 18-year period (strategic policies should provide for a period of 15 years and Local Plans invariably cover a period prior to adoption). This is the consequence of procrastination and delay which has affected plan-making in the new authority over a number of years.
Commentary and Conclusions
Although we welcome the change in focus and the drive to ensure the universal coverage of Local Plans, the changes could go further, provide greater clarity, and better support the aspirational approach to housing delivery.
The transitional arrangements in the draft NPPF will have varying consequences depending on the progress of each Local Plan and the difference between the proposed housing requirement and the standard method. For some authorities, those changes will be drastic. A number of authorities appear to be seeking a ‘tactical advantage’ by expediting their Plans so that a reduced requirement may be adopted, even if that means a new Plan should be prepared ‘at the earliest opportunity’[5].
It is therefore possible that there could be a flood of Local Plans submitted for examination over the coming months where the Regulation 19 consultation has been undertaken (or is due to be, provided that there is sufficient time to then submit within a month of the NPPF being published).
The structure of paragraphs 226c and 227 means that for many authorities, where the annual requirement is more than 200 dpa above the proposed standard method, expediting submission would allow the examination to proceed under the previous version of the NPPF and current standard method.
For Local Plans at Examination now or where a Plan is submitted within a month of the NPPF being published, which do proceed to adoption (with an annual requirement of more than 200 dpa below the Local Housing Need), paragraph 227 of the draft NPPF explains that the authority will be expected to commence plan-making in the new plan-making system ‘at the earliest opportunity’ to address the shortfall in housing need. The draft NPPF does not clarify what the term ‘at the earliest opportunity’ means and this is certainly an area where greater clarity should be provided in the final version. One solution might be to require that when authorities in this situation adopt their Local Plan, they must commit to the preparation of a new Local Plan[6] at the same Committee meeting. The complexity with this solution is that many aspects of the new system are still awaited, not least the hotly anticipated national development management policies.
Proceeding with the Plans in these cases may assist with the drive for the adoption of Local Plans, but it fails to support the levels of growth which underpin the overall stated ambitions for housing delivery during this Parliament. This approach may enable those authorities to adopt a Plan, with a housing requirement significantly below the proposed standard method figure, which then forms the basis of the five-year housing land supply calculation (as per the current[7] and draft[8] NPPFs) until a new Plan is adopted, or until the strategic policy containing the requirement is more than five years old (unless the authority reviews the policy and finds it to ‘not require updating’).
In the face of uncertainty regarding the current wording of paragraph 227 of the draft NPPF this reinforces the need to remove the ‘self-certifying’ Local Plan review process. If there is no certainty as to when a new Plan should be commenced (and no certainty that / when it would be adopted) which does grapple with the increased needs of an area, then a formal review, undertaken by a Planning Inspector is critical to ensure that such decisions are credible, whilst supporting the aims of increased housing delivery.
Rushing to submit a Plan to avoid an increased requirement may seem advantageous in some respects, but where those plans are found to be deficient, and lengthy pauses required to remedy them, the risks may be significant.
For example, the ‘tactical advantage’ which might come from the early submission of a Plan, or by expediting the Regulation 19 consultation, to avoid having to plan for a greater level of housing, carries this potential risk. The Minister of State’s letter to the Planning Inspectorate on 30 July 2024 discusses how the length of Local Plan examinations has been increasing[10] and that the application of ‘pragmatism’ to allow deficient plans to be fixed has “gone too far”. That same letter discusses how pragmatism “should be used only where it is likely a plan is capable of being found sound with limited additional work to address soundness issue” and that “Any pauses to undertake additional work should usually take no more than six months overall”. The potential effect of early submission is highlighted in the Horsham Local Plan Inspector’s preliminary letter which sets out comments on, amongst other matters, the extent of evidence still awaited whilst making reference to the Minister of State’s letter to PINS of 30 July 2024. The Horsham Local Plan may yet be ‘one to watch’ as to how PINS deal with protracted examinations.
Whilst the transitional arrangements may provide comfort to those authorities which have submitted, or can submit their Plan within a month of the revised NPPF being published, paragraph 228 is clear that for other plans, where the requirement is more than 200 dpa below the standard method, the Plan should be reviewed, in line with the draft NPPF and proposed standard method.
For more information on the implications of the proposed amendments to the transitional arrangements for Local Plans, please contact David Murray–Cox or Emily Rickard.
For how these changes might affect other regions, view our wider insights on the proposed reforms to the draft NPPF, which include details of who to contact for location-specific advice.
3 September 2024
[1]Paragraph 60 of the December 2023 NPPF
[2]https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-framework-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-framework-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system#chapter-12--the-future-of-planning-policy-and-plan-making
[3] Paragraph 227 of the draft NPPF
[4] Published after the draft NPPF
[5] If paragraphs 226c and 227 of the draft NPPF apply
[6] Under the new Plan-making system as per paragraph 227 of the draft NPPF
[7] Paragraph 77 and footnote 42 of the December 2023 NPPF
[8] Paragraph 76 and footnote 43 of the draft NPPF
[9] Under Regulation 10A Town and Country (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended)
[10] From 65 weeks on average in 2016 to 134 in 2022