Labour and the NPPF
With all the polls pointing to the election of a Labour government on Thursday, weekend media reports turned to what their immediate actions will be.
One of Labour’s priorities will be to ‘build, build, build’. The focus on this is to address the country’s chronic housing shortage and the aspiration of homeownership that is increasingly out of sight for many. This is behind the promise of building 1.5 million homes in five years.
Labour has focused on planning reform and resource as the means to achieve this. They have promised to reverse changes made by the current government that have watered down obligations on councils to ensure new housing delivery and will recruit hundreds of new planning officers to speed up the processing of applications.
Looking ahead
Beyond the housing crisis, planning reform is also seen as a means to deliver Labour’s economic growth mission. Housebuilding is part of this. But it also has the potential to unlock growth in a range of commercial sectors too. Keir Starmer and his Shadow Cabinet have talked about planning reform being a route to realise growth in sectors where the UK has the potential to be world leaders, like life sciences, and AI innovation. To realise this potential, we need to be able to build infrastructure like lab space, data centres, renewable energy and logistics warehouses quicker than the rest of the world.
Labour have identified an update to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) as a mechanism to reform fast. It was reported at the weekend that they will publish a new draft NPPF by the end of July. This will almost certainly include the reversal of the current government’s changes at the end of last year that removed mandatory housing delivery targets and the presumption in favour of approving sustainable developments where councils don’t have sufficient new housing supply - a sop to Conservative backbenchers concerned about the electoral impacts of housebuilding in their constituencies.
It has long been a frustration of business that the NPPF does not sufficiently recognise commercial development and the critical impact it has on economic growth. But with Labour’s focus on its growth mission there is an opportunity to change this.
With a new draft NPPF likely due in the next month, there isn’t long. Labour will work quickly with officials to put this together. Once published there will be a consultation on the draft. Wise businesses will not wait until then to make the case to the new government about how reform to the rules affecting their sector will help them to support Labour’s economic growth mission. They will seek to input and help the government to shape the draft NPPF and other subsequent mechanisms for planning reform.
If you need advice on how to go about this, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Cameron Scott our Partner who leads our specialist Built Environment unit.