Agenda item

Report attached.

The Cabinet considered a report of Councillor Munsif Dad, Leader of the Council, on the Government’s consultation on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2024.  The consultation would set out key issues which might have implications for Hyndburn, including proposed changes to:

a)    The delivery of new homes and the standard methodology for calculating annual housing need;

b)    The approach to brownfield, Green Belt and the new policy definition of “grey belt”;

c)    Local Plan preparation intervention criteria; and

d)    Increases to planning application fees.

The Leader noted the particular significance of a potential increase in the number of new homes required, from 194 per year to 313 per year, and the pressure that this might put on Hyndburn’s Green Belt, as well as infrastructure and service delivery.  He also highlighted the transitional arrangements referred to in Paragraph 4.13 of the report.  Given that Hyndburn was at the Regulation 19 stage of the production of its Local Plan it could continue housing development at the lower number of homes.  However, if the current Plan was not progressed, the new standard method of calculating annual housing need would apply.

Councillor Zak Khan raised a number of matters in relation to the HGV project, as outlined below:

• The consequences of having to develop new Local Plan, if the HGV project was not progressed;
• Whether a deadline had been attached to acceptance of the grant offer from Homes England, if so, what was the date;
• The consequences for future developments of not accepting the grant funding;
• The potential threat to other Green Belt land if a higher housing requirement was in place;
• A query about the level of support by the MP for a Strategic Rail Freight Terminal.

The Leader replied to the individual points raised and confirmed that the Council was engaged in a dialogue with Homes England about the review and potential outcomes.  The review would be completed within the relevant timeframe.

Approval of the report was not considered to be a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

The Government was consulting on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) until September 24^th 2024.  The consultation built on Labour’s election manifesto by reaffirming the commitment to delivering 1.5million homes in England over the next five years and committing to “get Britain building again”. The consultation covered a wide range of issues, but the report focused only on those which were most relevant for Hyndburn.

The report set out the proposed changes, but also indicated some of the potential implications for Hyndburn, including what these changes might mean for the emerging Local Plan.

The key proposed changes to the NPPF were explained in detail in the report under the following headings:

• Planning for the homes we need;
• A new standard method for assessing housing need;
• Brownfield, Green Belt and grey belt proposals;

o    Green Belt Release through plan-making;

o    Green Belt release through Decision Making;

o    Expected contributions for Green Belt development;

• Delivering affordable, well-designed homes and places;

o    Meeting the needs of looked after children;

• Changes to planning application fees;
• The future of planning policy and plan making; and
• Changes to local plan intervention criteria.

The potential implications for Hyndburn were as follows:

The new standard method generated an annual housing need figure of 313 dwellings.  This was significantly higher than that produced by the previous method, which was around 50 dwellings, and over 60% higher than the proposed Local Plan annual requirement of 194 dwellings.  The Plan was considered to be at an advanced stage so, if the Council proceeded to Examination with the current emerging Local Plan housing requirement, it would not have to apply the new standard method and could retain the proposed figure of 194 dwellings per year.  This would still be subject to scrutiny as part of the Examination, but it was considered to be a much more realistic figure and the Council could demonstrate that this level of delivery had actually been achieved in recent years.

In the meantime, until an up-to-date housing requirement was adopted, the Housing Delivery Test would use the new standard method as the default target that the Council would be measured against.  Any future Plans would also need to use the new standard method as the basis for its housing requirement and identify land to meet this accordingly.  Either way, it was likely that the Council would be expected to identify or grant permission for a greater amount of housing land than it has in the past. 

This would have significant impacts on the amount of land required for new development in Hyndburn.  The Borough’s urban areas were tightly constrained by Green Belt, and although the emerging local plan had sought to prioritise previously developed sites, an increase in housing numbers of the magnitude proposed would result in additional land currently in the Green Belt and Countryside having to be released for development.

The development of new housing, was normally associated with the development of land for employment uses.  The additional requirement would therefore potentially also increase the amount of land required for employment development.  This would need to be the subject of further evidence based work.

Low land values in Hyndburn often meant that it was not always possible to deliver some of the infrastructure improvements through uplifts in land values that would be delivered in other parts of England.  This resulted in an inequality of service provision and should be recognised through an increased need to fund the additional infrastructure needed to support the development of new housing on the scale proposed.

The low land values stemmed from a comparatively low level of demand for new housing in the Borough.  Whilst it was of course possible for the planning system to allocate land for new housing, it was also necessary to develop that land for housing.  Local authorities across Lancashire and the North West faced similar levels of increase in their housing numbers and it was not unreasonable to question whether the house building industry was able to deliver this level of increase or whether it would simply cherry pick the best sites in areas with more buoyant land values.  This would need to be subject to further work.

In relation to the proposed new approach to Green Belt, if the Council submitted its current emerging Plan before the transition deadline, it could be examined under the old system which had a stricter approach to Green Belt release and did not include considerations such as “grey belt”.  Again, however, any future Plan would be tested against new national policy and was likely to need to consider further Green Belt development.

Members were also asked take note of the proposal to include a requirement to take specific account of looked after children when they were assessing housing needs.  The Council were currently undertaking work to investigate the extent of applications for children’s care homes, along with other HMOs, with a view to better regulate them in terms of permitted development rights and planning permissions.  The implications of the proposed requirements would need to be explored further.

Officers considered that the proposed changes could have significant implications for Hyndburn and, in particular, they were concerned that new housing targets would be difficult to achieve and would result in the need to allow development on large areas of land which might not otherwise have been considered suitable.  Members were asked to give delegated authority to officers to provide a detailed response to Government, setting out these concerns and to make comments on other proposed changes, where relevant.

Alternative Options considered and Reasons for Rejection

Responding to the Government consultation was not a mandatory requirement, but it was important that the views of a wide range of local authorities were made clear to Government.  Hyndburn had a particular set of circumstances which varied both from local authority areas in other parts of the country and from other parts of Lancashire.  Therefore, Officers believed that a response should be made in order to represent the Borough.

Resolved                                    -    That Cabinet:

(1)   Notes the contents of the report and Appendix 1;

(2)   Gives delegated authority to the Council’s Executive Director (Legal and Democratic Services) and the Chief Planning and Transportation Officer, following consultation with the Portfolio Holder with responsibility for Planning, to provide a more detailed consultation response to Government on behalf of Hyndburn Borough Council.