Solihull Asks Inspectors to Ignore what new NPPF says about transitional Provisions to avoid Green Belt Allocations – err inspectors cannot ignore the NPPF

If they did they would be JRd to hell

Also the situation in Spelthorne where rather ridiculously they claim tyhey were previously buiiled into GB release

I hope inspectors are tough on such palapable nonsense

The Council does recognise that the transitional arrangements in paragraph 230 of the updated NPPF indicate that plans such as the Solihull Local Plan should be examined under the previous version of the Framework.

Thus, the direct consequence of this is clear. However, the Council believes that the situation is more nuanced as there are significant indirect consequences of this change in policy that do have a bearing on the examination of the Solihull Local Plan.

In that respect, it is our understanding that the Council has a number of options at this stage, these include: a. Continue with the examination of the plan and seek to make amendments to deal with the issues you have previously identified, i.e. follow a process to identify additional allocations to deal with the shortfall in the supply at the NEC. Inevitably, these additional allocations will be sites in the Green Belt.

Withdraw the plan and seek to prepare a fresh version of a plan that could be published after 19th March 2024 that would then be examined under the new Framework in accordance with the last sentence of paragraph 2301.

Continue with the examination of the plan without any further allocations.

Whilst option (a) would enable the examination of the plan to be completed under the terms of the previous Framework, it does not reflect the clear direction of travel that adopted national planning policy is now following. As such, it does not give the Council the opportunity of taking into account the new flexibilities to plan-making that are included in the updated NPPF.

Option (b) does need to be considered as a realistic fallback option since it would relate to a course of action to use national policy already set out in an up-to-date, approved Framework, not simply relying on a draft policy, or some potential future change to national policy, that may or may not be confirmed.