The NPPF centres on a plan-led system where local plans represent the starting point for decision-making. In order for the planning system to operate effectively, it requires that all local authorities have adopted a post-NPPF plan (i.e. adopted after March 2012). A post-NPPF plan gives LPAs greater control of planning decisions and also gives communities much more power to determine where development takes place.

Our research has found that, three years after the introduction of the NPPF, the process of adoption of new plans is slow. Of the 293 English LPAs (excluding London and National Parks), 222 (76%) do not have a post- NPPF plan in place. These LPAs are therefore relying on outdated plans and assessments of housing need.

Of additional concern is that among the LPAs without up-to-date plans are major metropolitan areas such as Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Southampton and Portsmouth. In addition, many of the authorities surrounding London are similarly without up-to-date plans. The situation around London is therefore at risk of exacerbating London’s shortfall rather than seeking to address it.

Of the 222 LPAs without up-to-date plans, 165 are at various stages of preparing a new plan ranging from initial preparation through to the examination stage. This leaves some 57 LPAs that have not started to prepare a new plan. Even where Local Plans have been adopted subsequent to the NPPF being published, our research found that 58% (41 out of 71) are based on SHMAs that pre-date the NPPF. Such plans are at risk of being formulated on an outdated assessment of housing need.

Levels of plan adoption

Graph 1 (below) shows that 165 local authorities are effectively ‘caught up’ in the plan-making system. LPAs have been subject to various policy changes from the Government over the last few years, creating significant uncertainty for LPAs. Furthermore, the onus on LPAs to provide up-to-date housing evidence has meant they must keep pace with changing market and demand conditions.

Resourcing within LPAs is also an issue due to job cuts and the fact that the remaining resources are often re-directed to busy development control teams rather than plan-making. The result is often that smaller policy teams are left to write local plans that must simultaneously balance the needs of community, councillors and developers. The complexity of these related issues means that the length of local plans has also started to increase with some local plans exceeding 300 pages (for example, North Dorset).

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^{Source: Savills Research}

Examination findings

Many plans are getting as far as the examination stage before being found to be ‘unsound’. Aylesbury Vale, Mid Sussex and Waverley councils are amongst those who have spent years preparing plans only for them to fail before an inspector. Inspectors have identified numerous reasons for finding plans ‘unsound’, but the most frequent reasons are planned levels of housing being too low or not being evidence-based and failing to comply with the ‘duty to cooperate’.

Falling at the last hurdle often means returning to ‘square one’ of the plan-making process and therefore delaying adoption of the local plan. Introducing flexibility to the system, for example an earlier ‘check’ of key strategic sites, could save time and be a potential improvement to the system.

One mechanism of flexibility is the adoption of local plans subject to the need for an ‘early review’. This applies to a third of plans which have been adopted post-NPPF. It enables a plan to be adopted despite an element of the evidence base being found unsatisfactory by the inspector, for example inadequate evidence to support the housing target.

The early review procedure often has a set timeframe e.g. for the review to be completed within three years. Given the severity of the housing crisis, it would be preferable to avoid plans failing at a late stage by ensuring that housing numbers are robust at an earlier stage in the original plan-making process.

Plan-making refinements

While it is possible to identify flaws in the current system, there is a general consensus in the planning and development industry that further time is required to see the full effects of the NPPF play out before any substantial changes are introduced.

There is however a clear need for strategic ‘tweaks’ to amend acknowledged deficiencies that are already apparent, for example the effectiveness of the duty to cooperate. The present system of requiring local authorities to work together to address strategic issues is not achieving joined- up outcomes and this is therefore an obvious area for reform.

Furthermore, a focus on encouraging local authorities to adopt a plan could be achieved through government intervention such as a statutory requirement on local authorities to adopt within a set timeframe or more gently through carefully selected incentives.

Up-to-date plans will enable LPAs to address in full the demand for new homes. With such strategies in place the LPA can shape its own destiny and robustly defend against development proposals that are not consistent with the spatial strategy of the plan.

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^{Source: Savills Research}