Consultation launched on levelling-up impact on national planning policy
The Government has launched a consultation on how future planning policy in England can best reflect its levelling-up ambitions.
The consultation is seeking feedback on proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which was introduced 10 years ago. The Framework is a “material consideration” in decision-taking and needs to incorporate the levelling-up policy objectives.
The consultation also calls for views on a wide range of proposals, “particularly focused on making sure the planning system capitalises on opportunities to support the natural environment, respond to climate change and deliver on levelling up of economic opportunity”.
The government has committed to delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s and is keen for local plans to play a bigger role in helping to achieve this target.
The Levelling Up White Paper, which was published ten months and four Chancellors ago, set out the aim of “giving communities a stronger say over where homes are built and what they look like”.
It was the first significant outline of the department’s thinking, following its rebranding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) in September 2021.
DLUHC was led by Michael Gove, who was in post for nine months, before Greg Clark and Simon Clarke were briefly Secretaries of State under Johnson, while the leadership election was taking place, and in Liz Truss’s short-lived government respectively.
Gove then returned in late October in Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet and has sought to put momentum back into levelling-up’s broad, but often ill-defined, policy visions.
The Government has the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill before Parliament, which it said “will put the foundations in place for delivering this by creating a genuinely plan-led system with a stronger voice for communities”.
It added: “The Bill begins to put communities at the heart of the planning system, offering communities beautiful homes and new neighbourhoods that they will welcome and a greater say in what is built and where.
“But the Bill is not the whole story: if we are to truly remake the planning system, we also need changes to national policy and guidance, regulations and wider support for local authorities, communities and applicants.”
