News and Press
Draft National Planning Policy Framework

The long awaited draft National Planning Policy Framework was published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 25 July. In it the Minister for Decentralisation and Cities Greg Clarke restates the commitment made by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to replace the current planning policy statements of around 1000 pages to the "around fifty" pages of the consultation draft.

In reality, the reason that this draft has been so widely anticipated was because of the interest in how the "presumption in favour of sustainable development" would be defined following the statement made on 14 June 2011.

As might be expected from a policy document rather than legislation, there is still plenty of room for interpretation. Rather than identifying what sustainable development actually is, the draft sets out three statements of what delivering sustainable development means.

These are:

• Planning for Prosperity (an economic role)
• Planning for People (a social role)
• Planning for Places (an environmental role).

However, the general theme is that sustainable economic growth is underpinned by the planning system delivering sustainable development through the plan making process and determination of planning applications. This has been interpreted already by pro-development groups as being pro-development and by environmental pressure groups as being anti-environmental protection. Whether this general theme will be affected by the consultation process remains to be seen.