Planning England's future: tests to judge planning reforms

It's another big day.  The future of the landuse planning system in England is to unveiled at 12.30pm this afternoon. 

The draft National Planning Policy Framework created a furore last summer because it gave priority to economic development over social and environmental concerns.  The National Trust, CPRE, ourselves and many other environmental organisations kicked up a fuss.  We shall find out today whether the Government has listened to our concerns. 

If you remember, we sought to constructively engage with the review and Simon Marsh, our excellent Head of Planning Policy, even contributed, in good faith,  to an early draft. 

We were all for simplifying planning guidance and speeding up the system.  Yet, the great clunking fist of the economic growth imperative changed the empahsis of the draft Frameowrk completely.  So much so that our own legal analysis suggested that SSSI protection would be weakened under these proposals.  See here, here and here. 

Following the furore last autumn thousands of campaigners wrote in to make their feelings heard - in the words of the Daily Telegraph campaign, they urged politicians to keep their "hands of our land".

So, we and many others will be listening carefully when the Minister stands up to address the House of Commons today.  We'll be paying particular attention to three key areas.

1. The definition of sustainable development.
The existing draft is based on the Brundtland definition. We (and 20 other organisations) support the version proposed by the CLG Selectg committee, which is based on the five guiding principles of the 2005 UK Sustainable Development Strategy.  This set the twin goals of a healthy just society which lives within environmental limits through good governance, sound science and a sustainable economy. The question today is - does the NPPF do this, and (critically) does it refer to the need to live within environmental limits?

2. The presumption in favour of sustainable development
We understand this will remain in the NPPF. But is it reframed in a way that does not promote one aspect of sustainability over others? The ‘significant and demonstrable harm’ test is a particular problem for SSSIs – how has this been reworded? Has the phrase, “the default answer to development is ‘yes’ been removed?

3. Proper protection for the natural environment
The presumption, and the natural environment policies, must not weaken existing protection. Our legal advice showed us the draft didn’t do this for SSSIs, despite Government reassurances. We will be looking critically at this: is the presumption reworded (above) and is there new explicit policy for SSSIs?

We'll be scoring the final document against these key tests. 

Do keep an eye out for our initial analysis on our Saving Special Places blog.