On 20 September 2024, Daisy Cooper MP wrote to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to respond to the consultation on the government’s proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), and planning system overall. Read her response in full:
I write as the Member of Parliament for St Albans, to respond to the consultation on the proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and other changes to the planning system, published on 30 July 2024.
This is the latest in a series of changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, and associated England-wide planning policies. It comes just months after the previous Conservative government’s last hatchet job, published in December 2023.
Since the introduction of the so-called “Standard Method” by the Conservative government in 2018, which was supposed to calculate housing need, the country has suffered from a topdown, dysfunctional, contradictory and wholly unworkable planning regime. The constant tinkering, with the introduction and subsequent withdrawal of various failed algorithms, has led to near paralysis of our planning system. This on top of central government starving local planning authorities of the resources they need to function.
As a Liberal Democrat, I am committed to a community-led planning system which delivers the homes we so desperately need in the places we really need them. A Liberal Democrat planning system would deliver 150,000 social homes a year: the council and housing association homes that would help end homelessness, overcrowding and years-long housing waiting lists.
The confusion and chaos visited on our country’s planning system by a succession of no fewer than thirteen Conservative Housing Ministers in the nine years since 2015 has been catastrophic. We need stability – a clear, deliverable planning framework to guide local decision and plan making.
I have responded here to the changes which I believe will most impact my constituents in St Albans, as a district in the Metropolitan Green Belt. My comments on suggested changes below follow the order in which they appear in the published consultation, and use the same headings and sub-headings for ease.
Chapter 3 – Planning for the homes we need
Strengthening and reforming the presumption in favour of sustainable development (“the
presumption”)
This change on its own would certainly clarify the government’s intentions on green belt development – namely, that developers should be given the green light to bulldoze it for development.
Notwithstanding, the new drafting will, in effect, simply codify the Conservative’s position. The reality already was that local authorities that refuse developments on our precious green belt land often have had their decisions overturned by central government inspectors at appeal.
In 2015 Conservative Ministers issued a written ministerial statement outlining protections for the green belt, but this was never incorporated into the NPPF. Accordingly, the Conservatives continued to claim that it wanted to protect the green belt whilst refusing to codify the very statements it made, which would achieve this. Additionally, whilst Conservative Ministers repeatedly claimed that development on the green belt could only happen in “exceptional circumstances”, it was clear from NPPF footnotes that these exceptions were defined so tightly so as to only apply to areas such as island communities or national parks, and not the metropolitan green belt. Such doublespeak has enraged communities for years.
Whilst this government’s proposed drafting changes are at least more honest in their approach, I would strongly urge the government to include explicit restrictions and protections for green belt development.
The housing targets imposed by the standard method algorithms were already making local plan making in green belt areas difficult. But the proposed changes could result in the St Albans district’s housing target increasing by up to 75 per cent.
Historically here in St Albans, mismanagement by the previous Conservative administration at the district council resulted in two failed draft local plans having to be withdrawn altogether. This has left the district with the oldest adopted plan in the country, and as a result, at the mercy of speculative development.
St Albans has been plagued by speculative applications from developers, who are intent to build as much housing as they can, of the kind that is most profitable for their investors. Green field areas of the green belt provide a cheaper alternative than complicated brownfield ones, which boosts margins for their shareholders.
If the Labour government is to sacrifice large swathes of our countryside to development, as this change undoubtedly will, developers should at the very least be made to build the homes we need.
The government’s proposals seem to include a promise of a greater focus on delivering affordable homes to rent or buy, but within that, there’s no specific target for the social (council and housing association) homes we need to tackle homelessness, overcrowding and years-long housing register waiting lists. I strongly urge the government to take up the Liberal Democrat goal of building 150,000 social homes a year.
Chapter 4 – A new Standard Method for assessing housing need
I have outlined already that a community-led planning system as advocated for by Liberal Democrats could deliver the homes we need, in the places we need them, without having to rely on a flawed Whitehall-imposed algorithm.
As with the plans to make it clear that the green belt is “fair game” for developers (detailed in Chapter 3), if nothing else these changes to the standard method requirements at least make it clear that the numbers generated by the standard method are indeed targets. Not only is it clear that they are targets which local authorities must deliver in their local plans, but the changes remove any doubt that they are also mandatory.
Successive Conservative Ministers have stood up in Parliament to tell MPs in green belt constituencies that their targets were not targets at all, but “just a starting point”. Secretaries of State claimed that targets were only “advisory” and “not mandatory”, whilst Planning Inspectors were imposing the very same targets rigidly on our communities when deciding planning appeals.
After years of Conservative duplicity, the intent of the standard method is now clearly spelled out for the first time.
But any new standard method calculation must allow for the effects of cumulative development. In St Albans we have had a Strategic Rail Freight Interchange imposed on us in Park Street, on the site of the former Radlett Aerodrome. This land, the size of 490 football pitches could have been used to deliver large numbers of affordable homes (approximately 2,500-3000), but was sold by the Conservative administration at Hertfordshire County Council following a decision by a Conservative Secretary of State to grant planning permission more than 10 years ago.
At the same time, neighbouring Hertsmere Borough Council intend to allocate land between the villages of London Colney and Colney Heath for a super-sized new town style development called Bowmans Cross: this is far away from any of their own settlements but is on the edge of ours.
We are also waiting for the government to decide whether or not it intends to give the green light to the expansion of Luton Airport which would put huge strain on our roads.
This proposed standard method calculation does not take into account the cumulative impact of existing non-residential development. Housing targets must be reduced where communities have had to surrender land – which could have been used for building homes – for other major infrastructure, and to allow for the impact of major infrastructure which might lay outside of the district, but has an impact on it.
Adjusting for affordability
Just as Liberals designed the National Health Service, it was a Liberal-led government that delivered the first truly affordable council homes. Affordable, secure housing is the bedrock of any society. However this so-called “affordability” adjustment has a perverse impact on green belt communities such as St Albans district.
It is already a struggle to find brownfield sites to deliver the existing Conservative imposed housing targets. By using the workplace-based median house price to earnings ratio to inform the new formula in this way, the St Albans district will be expected to meet an increase of those existing targets by a whopping 70 percent. Instead of having to find land for 15,000 homes over the next 17 years, they may need to find sites for almost 26,000 homes.
The Liberal Democrat administration has been pressing ahead to meet the existing standard method generated target in their draft local plan, as the only way to stop speculative development.
With around 80 percent of the St Albans district being comprised of treasured green belt, that’s meant difficult choices. But hard working local councillors have been frank and honest with the communities they serve.
Communities in the St Albans district have a stark choice. They can either plan for limited and controlled delivery of some homes on green belt land, or they can retain the status quo – uncontrolled speculative development rubber stamped by central government inspectors. Notwithstanding, I would urge the government to review the impact of its new standard method on the green belt.
Chapter 5 – Brownfield, grey belt and the green belt
After years of Conservative mismanagement of our national planning system, it is critical that this new NPPF is clear, and unambiguous.
Grey belt is simply not clearly defined – and suggestions of clearer guidance in the future simply won’t cut it. A change as important as introducing a whole new concept in planning can only be introduced if the government first provide an agreed definition.
Local authorities tell me that they already expend incredible resources on having to debate what is, and is not, green belt.
Having further protracted legal challenges, costing local authorities and the communities they serve countless millions of pounds, must be avoided. Of course, land which is technically in the green belt, but which has had housing or industrial buildings there before must be considered for future development of social homes. However, this is clearly not the limit of what the grey belt concept proposed in this consultation is aspiring to deliver.
The term “grey belt” is meaningless, and unless it is withdrawn, the government will simply waste public money. The grey belt concept would gift loopholes to greedy developers to challenge locally informed objections to inappropriate development, just as the previous Conservative government did with opaque targets, and “exceptional circumstances”.
Golden rules to ensure public benefit; and Delivering affordable housing
Where local authorities such as St Albans are required to sacrifice their precious green belt to meet nationally imposed housing targets, I absolutely agree that communities must get the best possible compensation for that loss of natural environment and amenity.
The consultation proposal to ensure 50% of those homes are “affordable” don’t go anywhere near far enough. Local communities, especially where the cost of housing is already deemed out of reach for the majority, should be allowed to agree their own proportion of affordable – and social – housing for such sites.
If local planning authorities can justify it, then they should have the powers to decide if they want to designate any green belt sites they are forced to surrender to development for up to 100% social housing.
I welcome the plans to allow local authorities to assess developer claims of being unable to meet their affordable housing contributions at a much later stage of the construction process. It is an open secret amongst developers that it’s perfectly feasible to submit a plan with 40% or more affordable housing in order to secure planning permission, and then claim it’s too expensive later. At the moment there is no recourse for local authorities to challenge such claims effectively, or demand that developers open up the books to provide the evidence.
Finally, I also agree that where developers are given consent to build on green belt, they must ensure they make a substantial contribution of their profits to ensuring there is the necessary infrastructure to support development, and compensate communities for loss of amenity.
The proposals in this consultation simply don’t go far enough though – schools, GP surgeries, transport links, nursery places and public transport infrastructure should be delivered before new housing is occupied where needed, not after.
Chapter 11 – Changes to planning application fees and cost recovery for local authorities related to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects
I strongly support measures to ensure that local planning authorities are properly resourced, and that local communities aren’t left subsidising big developers, and would urge the government to take up my long-standing campaign to finally remove the government-imposed cap on developer fees altogether.
Data provided by a former Conservative Planning Minister, in response to a parliamentary question I tabled in October 2022, demonstrates that across England’s planning services, developers were effectively subsidised by council tax payers to the tune of almost £2 billion in the financial year 2020/21.
In the St Albans District alone, tax-payers had been subsidising developers to the tune of a shocking £3.2 million a year. This represents a shortfall between the cost of operating the planning service, and the receipts of capped fees recovered from developers.
After months of campaigning, lobbying the Conservative government, and tabling amendments to the Levelling Up Bill, I introduced the Planning Application Fees Bill to the House of Commons in November 2022.
My proposals go further than the models set out in this consultation. They would allow local planning services to set their own scale of fees, with a view to ensuring that the costs of determining application can be wholly funded by application fees. Never again should those on the lowest incomes have to effectively subsidise the profits of multi-billion pound developers through the council tax bills.
As with some of the additional suggestions proposed in this consultation, I agree that planning authorities – subject to not making a surplus – should be able to meet their reasonable enforcement and planning policy costs from fee scales too. This should also allow for the fact that some LPAs have higher staffing costs.
Chapter 12 – The future of planning policy and plan making
Transitional arrangements for emerging plans in preparation
Since the Conservatives threw the planning system into chaos with the NPPF draft they brought forward last Christmas, some local plans have stalled. Others have been altered to take at face value the empty promises made by Ministers to appease their parliamentary colleagues in green belt constituencies.
Given the rhetoric from the then Secretary of State that housing targets were consigned tohistory, and in spite of those aspirations not being replicated in the NPPF which followed, some local councils did decide to reduce their housing delivery numbers.
However, St Albans district council took the prudent and responsible view that unless the abolition of housing targets was actually there in black and white in the NPPF, that they would continue to develop their plan according to the published rules.
It is likely that some authorities who didn’t take this route will have to scrap their plans and go back to the drawing board. But it appears clear that the intent from Ministers is that those councils who are making progress with local plans, at pace and in good faith, should be given the opportunity to adopt them.
St Albans district has for far too long been at the mercy of speculative development. It is desperate to adopt this Draft Local Plan to guarantee – as much as is in their power – that the district can ensure development happens on sites on which the community has been consulted.
The St Albans draft local plan is entering Regulation 19 stage, and is on schedule to be submitted for examination by the end of 2024.
This offers an opportunity that has been denied to St Albans district residents for almost a generation by local Conservative administrations: to have planned, controlled growth on sites that are included in a local plan.
In conjunction with neighbouring authorities, this stability could deliver exciting and much needed sustainable development in the district. For example the Hemel Garden Communities partnership with Hertfordshire County Council, Dacorum Borough Council, the Crown Estate and others.
It is essential that local planning authorities such as St Albans, where they are meeting the existing housing targets in good faith, are given the time and space to adopt a plan which is so near completion. The current transitional arrangements, which may disqualify such plans due to the short window of one month after a new NPPF is introduced, must be reviewed to ensure this does not happen. It’s vital that the government respects the council’s hardfought progress and doesn’t send the council back to square one to start all over again with a new target and a new methodology like a game of snakes and ladders.
Yours sincerely,
Daisy Cooper MP
Member of Parliament for St Albans