The Government has been busy furthering its agenda relating to planning reform with a raft of announcements last week published in a number of consultations and policy papers designed to accelerate housebuilding. 

These included the working paper on speeding up build-out rates, published on 25 May and a consultation on planning committee reforms and a policy paper on revising development thresholds, both published on 28 May. The same day, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) also launched a consultation on improving the implementation of biodiversity net gain for minor, medium and brownfield development.

The announcements across consultations and policy papers include measures to accelerate the build-out rate of permitted sites, changes to biodiversity net gain rules to support smaller builders, and proposals to streamline planning committee decision-making. There were also announcements regarding proposals to tighten the criteria under which local authorities are at risk of ‘special measures’ for the quality of their planning decisions. 

Measures to speed up build-out rates for consented sites

The Government is considering the introduction of a requirement for sites of more than 500 homes to be mixed tenure by default. The Government has suggested that there should be a requirement in relation to schemes of 500 homes or more to provide mixed tenure housing, which the government believes will speed up build out rates. 

The Government has advised that it will be seeking further views on the correct threshold and the detail of the policy as part of the consultation relating to the revised NPPF, which it intends to publish later this year.

As part of the package of measures to speed up build-out rates, the Government is also exploring whether to provide councils with the power to refuse to determine planning applications of more than 50 homes submitted by slow-building developers. 

The Government is also considering other measures including allowing councils to 'conditionally confirm' the compulsory purchase of sites where ‘alternative proposals have been put forward by landowners’ which later stall and the introduction of a fine for developer’s who consistently fail to build out consented sites and those who secure planning permissions ‘simply to trade land speculatively’.

Measures to help smaller builders and changes to biodiversity net gain rules.

The Government is considering introducing ‘a new medium development threshold for sites’ in respect of BNG to ‘ensure planning requirements are more proportionate and responsive to different development needs’. The new threshold would include sites with between ten and 49 homes and smaller than one hectare, or sites between 0.5 and one hectare where the number of dwellings is unknown. 

The Government has proposed that small sites could be exempt from biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirement altogether, while any schemes that fell within the proposed new ‘medium’ size development threshold would benefit from ‘simplified’ BNG rules and a ‘streamlined’ BNG requirement ‘including the option of a full exemption’. 

Changes to planning committee decision-making

The Government has announced that chief planning officers and committee chairs could be handed the power to decide which applications go to committee for determination. This would involve the creation of a ‘two-tier’ structure for its new national scheme of delegation, where one tier of applications would be determined by officers under delegated powers. The remaining applications would be determined by members, subject to the agreement of the council’s chief planning officer and committee chair. The Government has also proposed that the number of councillors who can sit on planning committees should be limited to eleven.

Tightening ‘special measures’ designation criteria for councils that have too many decisions overturned at appeal.

The Government has proposed tightening the criteria under which local authorities are at risk of planning performance ‘special measures’ for the quality of their decision-making by reducing the threshold from ten per cent of decisions that are later overturned at appeal to just five per cent. 

The recently proposed measures indicate a ‘doubling down’ by the Government in respect of its aim to get the country building in order to facilitate meeting its goal of building 1.5 million homes during this parliamentary session.  

If you are interested in reading the policy papers or responding to the consultations, you can click on the links below:

• Planning Reform Working Paper: Speeding Up Build Out
• Reform of planning committees: technical consultation
• Planning Reform Working Paper: Reforming Site Thresholds
• Improving the implementation of biodiversity net gain for minor, medium and brownfield development