The NPPF and the promotion of smaller sites

In December 2023, a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework arrived on our desks. In it, several changes intended to speed up the adoption of Local Plans and ultimately, the delivery of new homes. But what does it mean for the way in which land is identified for such needed homes and how does it involve local communities?

As we all come back from our Christmas break, planners up and down the country are digesting the new NPPF that was issued back in December. One of the main questions I am asking, is how does this impact the land promotion work we do? Paragraphs 69 to 73 are of particular relevance because they consider the approach to ‘identifying land for homes’.  The criteria for identifying a sufficient supply and mix of sites remains pretty much the same (by being available, suitable and economically viable) and small to medium sized sites continue to form a key to unlock 10% of the housing requirement for each local authority.  However, there has been an addition in the way in which it is expected some smaller sites, of 1 hectare or less, are to come forward and that is through a ‘community-led’ way.

Paragraph 70 adds to the old paragraph 69 whereby opportunities should be sought to support small sites coming forward for community-led development, including self-build and custom build housing.  This is a challenge, but one that that lends itself to the Neighbourhood Plan making process quite well. It offers up the freedom to Neighbourhood Plan groups and local communities involved with the preparation of Neighbourhood Plans to take a front seat in promoting the land that they want to see allocated. From a land promotion point of view, this will need to be approached in a different way to what is traditionally known.  Developers and large promoters have for some time, taken the lead on promoting land small, medium and large and community involvement can sometimes (but not always) take a back seat, be a tick box exercise even, to make a site that needs to be promoted and granted planning for development successful.  This approach, often, leaves communities with a feeling that they haven’t really had their say and results in a site that isn’t supported because it has either come forward too early, speculatively or the views of the community have they have been ignored. To genuinely take a community-led approach, it needs to be just that. It needs to come from the community.

So, what I take from this one small change coming from the new NPPF, is that we need to change the way in which some (not all) land is traditionally promoted and try to turn that into a successful outcome of community-led development. This may mean earlier conversations with parishes and Neighbourhood Plan Groups, working collaboratively with communities in identifying land for allocation within emerging Neighbourhood Plans, or contributing to area-wide design assessments informing where development should go.  Either way, the aim is to speed up housing delivery whilst ensuring that places evolve in the most sustainable way and meet the needs of existing communities as well as those of future residents.  

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