£100m boost for planners but no 50% affordable target for green belt in finalised NPPF

Richard Petty, head of UK residential valuation at property company JLL, said: “Three hundred extra planners will be welcome, but this represents fewer than one per council in England alone, never mind the rest of the UK. The £100m is a lot of money for 300 planners, so we can expect to see the bulk of that budget spent on consultants and technical studies.

“Ultimately, planners don’t build anything. What is missing in the government’s approach is recognition that we need to replace the construction workforce through training and immigration. Without builders, targets mean nothing.”

As proposed via consultation in August, the new NPPF centres on the reintroduction of mandatory housebuilding targets for councils.

Local authorities will be told to reach a new combined target of 370,000 homes a year, with targets rising for areas with the highest unaffordability of housing and “greatest potential for growth”.

The new NPPF will also require councils to review their green belt boundaries to meet building targets, including identifying lower-quality “grey belt” land.

Any development on the green belt must meet the government’s “golden rules”. The August consultation proposed a target of 50% affordable housing for any developments on the green belt, but this appears to have been watered down to a requirement for “a premium level of social and affordable housing”. In addition, councils and developers will be told to give “greater consideration to social rent” homes.

Under the current planning framework, just under one-third of local authorities adopted a local plan within the past five years, while the number of homes granted planning permission has fallen to the lowest level in a decade.

Ministers will give local authorities three months to progress local plans that are currently in development, subject to conditions that catch those which significantly undershoot new targets.

However, under a new requirement, if plans based on old targets are still in place from July 2026, councils will need to provide for an extra year’s supply of homes in their pipeline – six years instead of five. Where they do not, the strengthened presumption in favour of sustainable development would apply.

Brownfield land must continue to be the first port of call for any new development and the default answer when asked to build on brownfield should always be “yes”, the MHCLG said.

The government is also exploring further action to support and expedite the development of brownfield land in urban areas through ‘brownfield passports’, with more details to be set out next year.

On Monday, the government published its first working paper for the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which includes plans to “modernise” and professionalise planning committees, including mandatory training for councillors.

A formal public consultation on these proposals will coincide with the bill’s introduction next year.

The government has also committed to updating the National Design Guide and National Model Design Code in spring next year.

Deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner said: “Today’s landmark overhaul will sweep away last year’s damaging changes and shake up a broken planning system which caves in to the blockers and obstructs the builders.

“I will not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes over five years and deliver the biggest boost in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation.

“We expect every local area to adopt a plan to meet their housing need. The question is where the homes and local services people expect are built, not whether they are built at all.”

Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: “Planning reform also needs to be supported by further work to tackle workforce challenges, the costs of construction and the financial headroom of local authorities and housing associations to build the social and truly affordable homes we desperately need.  

“In order to deliver the homes we need, [the] government must work with councils and the housebuilding industry to ensure there is a suitable pipeline of sustainable sites, which once allocated in a local plan and/or given planning permission, are indeed built out. While councils recognise that swift decision-making on planning applications is critical, with nearly nine in 10 applications granted, people cannot and do not live in planning permissions.

“Local authorities must be given greater powers to ensure prompt build-out of sites with planning permission, as well as the ability to set planning fees at a local level.”