Agenda item

Note – the status of Neighbourhood Plans in the District may be found via this link

https://www.west-lindsey.gov.uk/my-services/planning-and-building/neighbourhood-planning/

The Committee heard from the Development Management Team Manager who explained that the Chancellor’s budget on 26 November had announced a number of measures relevant to planning. These included:

·         a new Planning Careers Hub to “retain and retrain mid-career professionals” and confirmed £48 million of "additional" funding for three government departments to recruit 350 new council planners;

·         the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said “the latest outturn on planning activity suggests that the impact of the March 2025 residential planning reforms” was “yet to materialise, consistent with our judgement that most of the increase in housebuilding takes place from 2027/28”

·         the OBR slightly reduced its forecast for the number of homes to be built in the UK over its six-year forecast period, after concluding that build rates would recover more slowly than it previously expected. The OBR predicted that 10,000 fewer homes would be built between the 2024/25 financial year and 2029/30 than it forecast in March;

·         the government “will explore further planning reforms to make it easier for hospitality and high street businesses to expand and grow”.

It was further highlighted that in a statement released last month, the Secretary of State for Housing (Steve Reed MP) advised MPs that that the government would release an updated NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) before Christmas.

He advised that under the new NPPF:

·         planning applications for new homes near “well-connected” train stations, including on green belt, would receive a default “yes” from decision-makers providing they “meet certain rules” 

·         the MHCLG statement also confirmed measures that would require English councils to tell the government when they intended to reject new housing developments of more than 150 homes. 

·         the housing secretary would then “decide whether to step in and make the decision instead”, it continued. “Particular attention will be paid to those applications where a planning committee intends to refuse it against the recommendation of planning officers”, it added. Applications that were “called in by ministers will also be sped up through the removal of the mandatory requirement for inquiries”. 

The housing secretary also told MPs that the government would bring forward a proposed suite of national development management policies (NDMPs) on a non-statutory basis alongside the new NPPF, before Christmas. It was explained to the committee that national development management policies (NDMPs), which were legislated for by the previous Conservative government’s 2023 Levelling Up and Regeneration Act but never brought into force, were designed to cover planning considerations that applied regularly in decision-making across England. The legislation gave them equal force to local plan policies in development management decisions, but where they conflicted, NDMPs would have more weight. 

With regard to the Neighbourhood Plans update across the district, the following was summarised: