Hands off our land:Buro Happold comments on the National Planning Policy Framework

03/01/2012 Written by: Sue Garland No comments

The current positioning of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is of great interest to renowned consulting engineers, Buro Happold. The Environment Industries Commission (EIC) which serves as an interface between the UK’s 10,000 strong environmental technology services (ETS) industry and government has expressed serious concerns to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) on current proposals within the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
Hugh Mallett Technical Director, Ground Engineering at Buro Happold was invited to frame the collective response of the EIC Contaminated Land Working Group which is calling for the ongoing recognition of the brownfield first policy and 60% brownfield housing target.

Mallett says: “In order to support the presumption in favour of sustainable development, planning policies should ensure that Brownfield land should be developed first, reducing the need for the development of Greenfield sites. The NPPF as currently drafted does not refer to Brownfield land and does not clearly state that such land should be developed first. We are calling for the reinstating a reference to favouring development on brownfield land first.

“We are also concerned about what will happen in the absence of technical guidance all of which is due to be scrapped by the Government in March 2012. We support the EIC position that without supporting national guidance, the Framework as drafted cannot deliver a consistent approach, both in terms of delivery and quality.”

To summarise without the supporting authoritative technical guidance, the NPPF as drafted will fail to deliver:

• Clarity of advice:  Who has responsibility for what actions in the planning system and how that responsibility is to be discharged

• Consistency: In both the developers' applications and in their assessment by local planning authorities and their statutory consultees

• Certainty: If developers follow the technical guidance and are thus able to truly demonstrate sustainable development they should be entitled to anticipate with a reasonable degree of certainty that their investment in preparing the application should receive a favourable response