We are in that stage of the political cycle where previously developed land comes into play as a policy tool. Reams have now have been written and handed over by supplicants on the draft NPPF consultation and the proposed inclusion of the “acceptable in principle” badge for PDL. In parallel, the sort of Domesday-lite brownfield register approach heralded in 2020 is now augmented by the virtual reality of Brownfield Passport proposals.
Retrofit Survey – ends 31 October 2024
Amidst all the revving of engines on the NPPF consultation, though, it is worth bearing in mind that Government is also running a survey on
whether Government should update national planning policy and guidance in the future, regarding the demolition and redevelopment or retrofit of buildings.
The survey does not appear to be directly hosted by Government and did not form part of the NPPF consultation (having been launched a couple of days after it closed).
It seems like an important thing for Government to receive detailed, representative and informed responses on. Hopefully that will happen.
Given the push for PDL, it is important to bear a few things in mind.
A Few Things
The push for PDL is not new but is challenged. A policy blitz in the 1990s, supported by substantial state investment, generated real successes. The share of housing on PDL increased from 57% in 1996 up to 80% by 2008.
It did not need registers or passports. Think instead Urban Regeneration Companies, Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders, Single Regeneration Budget, Neighbourhood Renewal Areas and SureStart Areas and the accelerant of the Urban Task Force’s Report*.
Brownfield land still faces challenges despite the strong emphasis on it in the draft NPPF changes.
- New homes on PDL fell back, by 2021-22, to 54%, with average density of residential falling from 42 to 31 homes/ha (MHCLG, October 2022). Only 2% of homes went in the green belt (half of which were on PDL) and 3% were in high/medium flood risk zones. 15% of homes went on agricultural land.
- Local planning policies on employment uses have not caught up with changes in the market since Covid-19. Getting logistics schemes approved on defunct out of centre office sites – effectively stranded assets – is still disproportionately difficult, for example, because the alternative use expected for many of them is a ‘pure’ industrial use for which there is far less consistent demand.
- The overall regulatory burden on development has increased, including things that have a big impact on PDL.
Retrofit
In town and city centres, reimagining defunct commercial space to achieve far better densities is now challenged by debates on embodied carbon. Those debates are legitimate and the challenge is absolutely right, without question.
The way that challenge is articulated in the planning process – and the consequences of it require careful thought. They may require more than a survey, because as the policy levers pulled in the 1990s show, there are consequences. Ensuring that they achieve a common good is worthy of careful reflection.
In London, the rulebook for assessing whole life cycle carbon is increasingly transparent and sophisticated. The M&S judgment has helped to clarify that there is no ‘retrofit first’ policy nationally and that the starting point has to be the adopted development plan requirement for the site. The challenge that this increasingly brings into clear focus is what that – policy – requirement actually is. For the M&S site (and other sites in London’s Central Activity Zone), the answer is clear because the CAZ is prioritised for very specific uses, to achieve particular kinds of growth. The Inspector was able to reach a clear view the proposals accord with the development plan.
The market is also now aligning itself with retrofit in different guises, both because of ESG as a pervasive consideration but also just because the costs of building afresh are so much higher than before and so there is a natural incentive to be far more efficient in the use of resources, including those already on site.
Two main challenges are emerging:
- Outside designated areas, what are the policy requirements that help define the starting point for a given site? If a site is allocated for hotel or office development only, the optioneering required is far less complex- what is the least carbon intensive way of achieving that requirement in a way that also maximises the benefits the scheme is intended to deliver? If the policy requirement is less specific, how many options have to be explored and how big is the risk that the optimum balance of carbon and wider benefits turns out to be a scheme that the developer does not want to build (or, more importantly, society does not actually need or need to use that scarce PDL for)? This question matters to policy-makers because if an unbalanced position is adopted, it will undermine the goal that everyone seems to agree on for PDL – optimising it and doing so for the things that it is most sustainable to put on it, bearing in mind where it is.
- Some authorities are seeking to adopt policies that place carbon intensity at the very first stage of the optioneering process, so that low carbon is the first filter rather than a sense check once the best form of development for the area has been assessed. This is already having a chilling effect on investment and will turn out some poor schemes which do not deliver much growth or the right uses in the best locations despite being the ‘least worst scheme’ in purely carbon terms.
As we nurture the prospect of a significantly less carbon intensive real estate industry, we need to make sure that policy does not throw too much water out of the bath, but instead focusses on asking the things that make planning one of the oldest and greatest of all professions:
- What will success look like
- What do we need
- How much
- Where
- How do we do it?
