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BH PLANNING & DESIGN NEWS
THE NEW NATIONAL PLANNING POLICY FRAMEWORK:
THINKING BIG
AND SMALL
DIRECTOR AT BH PLANNING AND DESIGN, MARK KETLEY, EXPLORES THE CURRENT PLANNING
INDUSTRY AND HOW IT IS AFFECTED BY THE GOVERNMENT’S NEW HOUSING POLICY.
The role which the planning profession has in helping
to deliver housing growth has never been greater.
The past year has seen a plethora of new
policy initiatives and consultation
proposals in reaction to the
Government’s policy agenda which is
heavily focussed on planning reform and
ensuring a system is put in place capable
of addressing the national housing crisis.
The initiatives and proposals are aimed at
xing the broken housing market and
boosting supply towards a long-term
target of delivering 300,000 new homes
per year.
On March 5 the consultation version of
the new National Planning Policy
Framework (NPPF) was published and,
not surprisingly, it identies the delivery
of additional new homes as a
fundamental principle and a clear priority
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underpinning the whole of the
Government’s intended approach to
planning.
The key question, and the biggest
challenge facing the industry, is therefore
how will a doubling of current housing
supply rates be achieved whilst ensuring
this is delivered in an environmentally
and socially sustainable way?
Recent decades have shown that
incremental developments alone will not
meet the level of demand for new homes
- nor will they achieve sustainable
development in its truest sense. It is
therefore time to start thinking outside of
the box and look to support alternative
forms of housing delivery on both a small
and large scale.
Although the current market is
providing a more attractive environment
for housebuilding - with investment and
improved economic conditions both
contributing signicantly to an increase in
supply in excess of 50% nationally in the
last three years - there remains a need for
long term planning to ensure delivery of
housing on an even larger scale.
The diculty that the Government has
is that the main volume housebuilders,
responsible for around 90% of housing
growth since the recession, cannot
continue to expand indenitely and
therefore alternative delivery
mechanisms need to be found.
Large scale garden towns and villages
have been touted as the solution for
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