A Framework-Led Conversation

50 Shades of Planning

In this episode, Sam Stafford sits down with planning professionals Simon Ricketts, Andrew Taylor, and Mike Kiely to discuss the mounting uncertainties

Key takeaways

• Ambiguity in the NPPF regarding 'evidenced unmet need' creates significant uncertainty for residential development presumption.
• The distinction between green belt and grey belt criteria is becoming a critical point of contention for developers.

Main topics

• NPPF uncertainties
• Housing targets and delivery

Notable quotes

In the Netherlands, planning is seen as part of the solution and in the UK, planning is part of the problem.

Conclusion

The episode underscores that political volatility and policy ambiguity

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Delivering employment land starts with the right location and that's where Richborough Commercial comes in. We work across the UK to unlock and promote commercial land, helping landowners secure planning and connecting developers with the best located sites. With strategic planning expertise, we deliver sustainable employment and mixed-use sites that drive economic growth. Richborough Commercial. Securing land, planning and value. Find out more at richborough.co.uk Hello Speaker 6 (1:08) listeners, Sam Stafford here. It is an early Thursday morning as I record this in what, a touch over three quarters of the way through September 2026. I am reporting this time from a bench adjacent to the Rhyburn Reservoir, which is not far from Stafford Towers on the edge of Rippenden in West Yorkshire, and it is glorious, listeners. The kind of light and the kind of colour that is perhaps only enjoyed during the last vestiges of an English summer. Speaking of which, the final round of county championship matches start today. Youngest and I will hopefully be going to the home of cricket and my favourite place, Trent Bridge, on Saturday to watch my county against his county. Hopefully the weather holds until then because I do like to make an annual pilgrimage down there. There has been a lot of talk on my timelines this week about what it is to be English. For me, Englishness is being more comfortable in one's autumn wardrobe than one's summer wardrobe, which is one reason as the stumps are drawn to embrace the changing of the seasons. Anyway, you have not downloaded this to hear me ramble on about that. Let me tell you about episode number 183 of the podcast. So yes, I'm at home this morning before heading to a LPDF event in Cheshire later. But I was in London last week and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast, Simon Ricketts, Andrew Taylor and Mike Kiley. Simon is a partner at Town Legal. Andrew is Group Planning and Sustainability Director at Vistri. And Mike is a former Chief Planner, now Independent Planning Consultant, working mainly in the public sector, as well as chairing the board of the Planning Officers Society. In a conversation recorded at Brazen Studios in Southwark, which we enjoyed visiting for the first time, we kicked around a few of the issues exercising the planning profession at the minute. Our ramble chat took in the pause to local government reorganisation, housing targets, reforms planning teal paper, the importance of next month's budget and reports from the RTPI. of increasing use of its professional conduct complaints process as a way of people seeking to challenge LPA decisions. I will be back at the end for a little bit more waffle, but first, and after this jingle, we started with the MPPF and Simon introducing us to the issues around evidenced unmet need. Quite Speaker 2 (4:15) a lot already happening in relation to emerging Speaker 2 (4:20) uncertainties in terms of the NPPF. I think we all recognise it's such a clearer framework for us all to operate under, but inevitably everyone is now, as they're applying it to their existing projects, seeing where the uncertainties are. I don't know whether we want to dive into one, which is that whole question of what evidenced unmet need. means which is critical to whether the massively pro-development presumption in policy S5 in relation to development out of settlements applies in relation to residential development because I think everyone agrees the wording of category J in relation to development where you can show an evidence unmet need is not particularly clear as to whether in relation to housing development you can only show evidenced unmet need by showing you haven't got a five-year housing land supply or you're less than 75 % of the housing delivery test and it's been brought into sharp focus by a decision letter in relation to a scheme by Nicholas King Homes where the inspector accepted what the appellant was saying which was evidence unmet need can be shown in other ways for example if there's an unmet need for affordable housing in the area it's a big point the inspector probably is right but I do think there's room for argument and to have a wider interpretation of evidence done met need is number one inconsistent with when you look at the criteria for gray belt it is specific to the traditional understanding of unmet need and it gives a lot of wriggle room because where in the country is there not an unmet need for affordable housing exactly i'll stop there yeah Speaker 6 (6:42) So you have a different criteria for grey belt green belt and other land in practical effect So the question is other Speaker 3 (6:57) land outside built up areas. Yeah, Speaker 2 (6:59) if you're the land outside built area Yeah, if you're outside a built up area Housing development if it's if it's green belt Um... You can demonstrate that it's grey belt, but you also need to show that there is an evidence done met need. And specifically, that is only if there's less than five year housing land supply or you're failing the housing delivery test. Whereas the test is slightly different for non green belt land outside of settlements where it seems that you can. it's a more relaxed approach to showing unmet need and unmet need for for example affordable housing may count and get you that massively pro development presumption in S5 and it's a really binary fulcrum seesaw thing where if you pass it and Then there's the presumption in favor of development If you don't pass it, your development should be refused. So it's absolutely critical. Speaker 2 (8:16) And Speaker 3 (8:17) the lawyers pile in. And it's hardly a nice, clear, rule-based system that's going to speed up decision-making, etc. I think it's clearly an error. I don't think it was intended to say what the lawyers are reading into it. It just wouldn't make sense that you'd think you'd have a consistent way of identifying unmet need, a lot of what was in Greybelt, which was pre this NPPF. And I think it's just an error in the drafting that needs to be clarified because it's not going to help. Speaker 2 (8:45) You think it Speaker 3 (8:46) should be narrower? Speaker 2 (8:46) Yeah, of Speaker 3 (8:47) course. As you say, unmet needs in affordable housing, what's that got to do with planning? Trace that back to the 70s. Speaker 6 (8:57) Meeting affordable housing needs is the point of planning, isn't it, Michael? Speaker 3 (9:02) It's the point of planning to contribute to that, but if anyone thinks that planning can deliver fully met affordable housing, frankly, they're an idiot. Speaker 6 (9:12) Okay, well, that's a bigger point. But all I meant to say was that if there were... Speaker 3 (9:18) Let's have a reasonable system. Speaker 6 (9:21) Okay, well, let's come... Your point is the point about planning meeting housing need in a much broader sense. In the planning sense, a SHMA, we have a standard method, which may be below a SHMA figure. Because authorities still have to understand and interrogate any starting point. So you could have a circumstance where the Shema is considerably higher than... Or lower. Or lower, but yeah. But in the case where it's higher and you might have thousands of people on a waiting list, that's a planning consideration. Speaker 3 (10:02) Yeah, of course. And Speaker 6 (10:04) it Speaker 5 (10:05) has been all the way through. I mean, talking about the Greenbelt, you know, actually the... golden rules are pushing the affordable housing side to give you more more points on your scale or whatever isn't it to tip that balance even further and we've seen that over before the mppf was coming out as well people were doing that in terms of putting more affordable housing in uh yeah i don't know whether it was necessarily a mistake certainly different and it's not necessarily uh helpful to have two different definitions but it does make it a much more pro-development stance so even if it wasn't intentional it certainly had a or potentially having a significant impact but the clarity especially when you look at the appeal decision and you look at recent questions written answers sorry that have been given to um questions that's been tabled in in the house again there's a bit of ambiguity there and certainly not the broadplay system that you mentioned mike in terms of that clarity coming through and Speaker 2 (10:57) the other thing is i think we're not in a plan-led system at the moment given uh the way in which you should give very limited weight to materially inconsistent policies in an existing plan or plan that hasn't been examined against a new MPPF. We are in a framework-led system and that's the government's pro-development approach. But there are going to be increasing uncertainties about what... Where is the dividing line between policies which are materially inconsistent with the NPPF and the aren't? And for each authority, I think the industry is going to have to start collecting the appeal decisions and local decisions to work out what has been accepted as the inconsistent policies and which aren't. Speaker 2 (11:50) You mentioned previously, Sam, I think it was Mark Fessy on LinkedIn made the good point that all of these authorities that are rushing to get their plans under the line, under the existing system, isn't really helping them because S5, I talked about, is going to really trump those policies if those policies are inconsistent. Speaker 6 (12:21) If it was a drafting error... Speaker 6 (12:28) The remedy would be... Speaker 2 (12:31) They don't legally need to consult. They could revise or there could be PPG guidelines. But if it Speaker 6 (12:38) wasn't, then the Baroness Taylor answer to Jamie Jameson's... Lord Jameson's Speaker 5 (12:49) question. Lord Jameson's question. That needed to be a lot firmer. Speaker 6 (12:54) It was Speaker 5 (12:54) probably more an ambiguous answer, wasn't it? it didn't help in terms of the clarity i suppose is the point isn't it if we if we are looking for certainty and clarity the answer was as ambiguous as the drafting in the mppf which again is that the intention um but you're putting it back into that what's the evidence in that locality what's what are you coming up with and what's the argument discussion engagement that you have as part of that process on each application which at one level is fine but not in terms of the certainty of yes i can move forward because yes this balance has been tipped and yes that gives us the certainty and we don't need to have this argument because the whole point is trying to simplify the system so all parties all sides in that discussion know right we've ticked that box right let's move on to where the designs right landscaping's right the Speaker 3 (13:40) trouble with it though is what what data do you use so people say oh council house waiting list well they they're a much varied thing some are very very strict others will almost put anyone on there so it doesn't really tell you what housing need is so it's yeah it's it's it's quite an onerous thing to actually demonstrate yeah Speaker 5 (13:55) yeah and uh temporary accommodation you've got lots of things like that haven't you and they're very and most i think most authorities have you know significant temporary accommodation and those stats are published but again they're very varied because they'll they'll change on a regular basis in terms of the numbers and even Speaker 2 (14:11) if you can show an unmet affordable housing need How much market housing does that allow you to bring forward? Yeah, which we had a little Speaker 5 (14:20) bit with sort of exception needs, you know, MPBF X number ago when it suddenly, oh yes, you can have some market housing to help facilitate to pay for a bit of junction or whatever it is to do alongside that. Well, then what does that mean? You tend to have affordable houses with what number of market houses to facilitate that. I wanted to pick up on Mike's settlement boundary that you alluded to earlier. Because that was a really interesting comment. Speaker 3 (14:43) There was a LinkedIn thing from Stacey. But when I looked at the aerial photograph, it looked as though it had housing surrounding it and to the south being developed. As if the Speaker 6 (14:54) settlement boundary had gone... I don't know why I'm using my finger on an audio podcast. For your purpose, as if not the listeners' purpose. As if the settlement boundary had gone like that. It's clearly an infield plot. But the settlement boundary... But so many boundaries are Speaker 5 (15:12) historical, aren't they? I've had allocations that, well, the allocation's going to be outside the development boundary until it's all built out, and then we'll do it next time around. That's what I've been told sometimes in the past. So the boundaries take a while to catch up. But it was just that interesting, it no longer weighs that line on the plan. It's, well, what... tell me about it on site. I think whether it Speaker 3 (15:32) was the circumstances of that particular case and you know normally it's going to be the settlement boundaries unless they're significantly Speaker 5 (15:38) out of date. Yeah Speaker 3 (15:38) but I could see lots of scenarios Speaker 5 (15:40) even near where I live I could see scenarios well you know it's got development on one side of the road and something it's like it feels part of the village you've gone through the first He says that until the planning application goes in, then it Speaker 6 (15:53) won't be Speaker 5 (15:53) anywhere near the Speaker 6 (15:54) village. Speaker 3 (15:54) It's outside the settlement boundary, but it's sort of natural infilling. Naturally adhered to it or part of it or form as part Speaker 2 (16:00) of it. I Speaker 3 (16:00) think to say it's within the settlement boundary in those cases when it is clearly an extension and an infill is a bit disingenuous. But that one did seem odd. And I do wonder whether it was determined on its unique facts. But Speaker 2 (16:14) that is the real first. There's two fulcrums. Fulcrum? Don't know. Speaker 2 (16:20) First is, are you in a settlement or outside of a settlement? Because either you're S4, which is even more pro-development, or S5, where you're really pro-development if you fall within one of those 10 categories. So that's Speaker 3 (16:31) the Speaker 2 (16:31) first fulcrum. And then the second fulcrum for S5 is, well, does that category J, unmet need, apply? Does the reasonable walking distance of a well-connected railway station apply with all the... slight subjectivities within that. So, God, it's depressing that there's still going to be things for all of us to argue about. We've got that uncertainty of, you know, the MPPF isn't the answer to all of our prayers, although it is a significant improvement. We shouldn't be too Speaker 5 (17:00) churlish. Yeah, I think it was a massive task. So, yeah, we're always going to be picking holes and stuff, aren't we, Simon? But I think it was a massive task. And again, we should. Speaker 5 (17:11) Is that Speaker 6 (17:12) the only thing I keep hearing about is the merits of a, if not a list of railway stations, which doesn't seem, you know, that seems entirely sensible to me. Well, it might change. But what are they right now? You're the government. You know where there's going to be train stations. If not that, at least this definition of daytime. Yes. because that does seem to have a significant impact on on the average so that's all