The Government’s solution to the so-far intractable problem of Neighbourhood Plans that do not meet housing needs is here in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement (WMS) calling time on the relative certainty provided by the NPPF and firing the starting gun for changes to the NPPF due with the issue of the Housing White Paper early in 2017. Most Neighbourhood Plans (NPs) will be going nowhere sensible, even more emphatically than ever.
Nothing comes of nothing
The Courts have confirmed that the Examination tests for a Neighbourhood Plan are a cake walk that does not require any sensible relationship with strategic goals of meeting Objectively Assessed Needs. NPs can be passed fit for service at Examination simply having “regard to” national policies where it is “in general conformity with the strategic policies” that may date back to the 1990s and have little or no relationship to the ongoing mess of housing delivery.
Equally, the ability to put NPs in place without any up to date strategic policies – and the endless snakes and ladders of the Local Plan process – creates a challenge for those promoting NPs as a positive framework for local growth. Adopted NPs may provide a warm glow that immediately fades as an absent overarching housing land supply weighs in under paragraph 49 of the NPPF.
The Government’s response to date has been wholly political. In some cases NPs have been effectively ignored; in others the out of date NP policies have been given determinative weight, refusing permission for 100 homes at Yapton in an area of housing need with 3 years’ HLS on the basis that out of date NP policies should be given “significant weight”.
Sticking Plaster Applied
The WMS states that
“relevant policies for the supply of housing in a neighbourhood plan … should not be deemed to be ‘out-of-date’ [under NPPF49] where […]”:
- the WMS or the NP are less than 2 years old
- the NP “allocates sites for housing”
- the LPA “can demonstrate a three-year supply of deliverable housing sites”.
Cue some authorities currently bobbing around on the Local Plan process to ditch infrastructure planning, batten down the hatches with a 3 year supply and encourage NPs through the process. Cue some NP that allocate a couple of single unit sites being treated as up to date even if there remains a housing shortfall in the neighbourhood.
A far better solution would simply be to require the NP examination regime to grapple with the unconstrained Objectively Assessed Needs for their area and plan to meet an equitable slice of them until the Local Plan comes along. NP authors are, after all, engaging in devolved governance. With that great power comes great responsibility.
