Why Smart Growth has to be part of the #NPPF – It wont work without it

Feedback from several attendees at the planning sounding board yesterday that the DCLG’s position is that the locational and density principles used in local plans will be entirely a matter for local planning authorities – i.e. it will not presume any kind of model of urbanism or suburbanism or even urban sprawl.

A moments thought shows how this would be impractical.

1) What when there is not up to date local plan and no early prospect of adoption i.e. ‘prematurity’ does not apply.  In those cases do you simply approve everything?  In many cases developments will be mutually exclusive such as where there are infrastructure capacity constraints.  How then does the SoS choose?  Also the lack of a local plan might not be the LPAs fault, an adjoining authority may be refusing to cooperate, infrastructure bodies or the government may have withdrawn funding from a vital piece of infrastructure.  In these cases the SoS will be forced to apply principles of good planning as to where development should and should not go and to what density.  Furthermore if one form and pattern of development has a greater carbon impact then another if the SoS failed to recognise this the decision could immediately be challenged as contrary to the National Carbon Plan and Carbon Change Reduction Act 2009.  Indeed internationally it has been similar carbon legislation which have mandated smart growth.

2) It allows LPAs to game the system by reducing densities to very low levels and thereby reducing housing If an LPA wants less housing all it has to do is reduce maximum densities to very low levels.  There is nothing in the NPPF about using land efficiently.  You don’t have to meet your objectively assessed needs if it conflicts with the NPPF and one of the principles of the NPPF is that density is a local choice, in those cases your neighbours would have to meet the overspill.  We are already seeing examples of this – such as at Ipswich.  The overspill housing will need to go elsewhere, the more spread out development will be less efficient for public transport and cost more to the public through additional infrastructure costs – often paid for by council tax payers in adjoining authorities.