The Government's NPPF which has condensed thousands of pages of planning policy into just fifty pages has been published today. You can find a copy of the NPPF via http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/2115939.pdf.
The draft version had included removing the requirement to consider building on brownfield land first and was generally heavily schewed towards a building 'free for all' and many different groups including Solihull FOE were right to strongly oppose it (For more information, you can read about the problems with the draft NPPF via comments made by various groups including Friends of the Earth and explained in just about every media outlet). Furthermore, it was not clear what the definition of 'sustainable development' meant.
Changes have now been made with the requirement to build on brownfield land first now reinstated, with Protection of the Green Belt, sites of special scientific interest and national parks retained and the Government has said that these can't be overridden by the presumption of yes to 'sustainable development' The instrinsic beauty of non-Green Belt land has to also be recognised though with the presumption to 'sustainable development' in practice, it remains to be seen how much weight this consideration has when assessing whether a proposed development is 'sustainable' and therefore whether it should take place. However, we do welcome the specific protection for playing fields which help towards achieving important social goals as well as the pledge to prevent garden grabbing for development since we believe that inner cities have to be healthy places to live rather than turned into concrete jungles which are to the detriment of the environment.
The government's definition of 'Sustainable Development are the UN's five 'guiding principles' of sustainable development", which encompass environmental limits, a "strong, healthy and just society", a sustainable economy, good governance and good science.
Overall, we cautiously welcome some of the changes made to the draft NPPF. However, we are still very concerned about what the presumption for Sustainable Development means in practice. This NPPF is still very vague and therefore we have to monitor how it all works out. Although it is improved from its draft form, it is certainly still not a document that one can say is completely satisfactory to us but it's better than it was in theory at least.
Solihull Friends of the Earth recognises the housing shortage, particularly in parts of Solihull where there is a shortage of social housing and therefore are in favour of appropriate house building (Brownfield sites) which should be aimed to be low or even zero carbon and not at the expense of the environment (e.g. green spaces, woods, parks etc...). We also recognise the important role that businesses can play in the community to create much needed jobs and hope that further support can be given to firms who are in the renewable energy industry and those who want to operate via low or zero carbon.
However, if uncontrolled and unsuitable developments begins to arise as a result of the NPPF, then it will have proven to have still been a 'developer's charter' Therefore, we intend to continue to see how everything works in practice. This is why why we are only giving a cautious welcome to the revised version of the NPPF and our position is 'wait, monitor and see.'
What is your assessment of the NPPF ? All comments welcome...
