Comment

Local Plan reviews: A failure to plan?

Local Plans need to be regularly updated to ensure that they are responding to changing local needs and circumstances. To this end, the Government recently revised The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended) to introduce a statutory requirement, under Regulation 10A, that from 6 April 2018 Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) must review their Local Plan within five years of the date of adoption.

Planning Practice Guidance on ‘Plan Reviews’ was updated in March 2019 and provides more detail on what such a review should address; namely changing local circumstances such as when the local housing need figure has changed significantly, or where there are relevant changes in national policy. If, after assessing its Local Plan policies, an LPA needs to amend one or more policies, it should update its Local Development Scheme to set out the timetable for when these amendments will be consulted upon and examined. However, if the LPA considers their policies do not need updating, then it must publish a set of reasons explaining why.

Reigate & Banstead – a case study for future paralysis?

Consequently, we noted with great interest Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s recent decision, at an extraordinary full council meeting on 2 July 2019, to publish a 33 page report setting out the reasons why it considered that none of the policies in its Core Strategy needed updating. This is despite the recent Inspector’s Report on the examination of the council’s Development Management Plan noting that a review of the Core Strategy had commenced and would take the form of a new Local Plan.

The Reigate & Banstead Local Plan: Core Strategy was adopted on 3 July 2014, meaning the five year review deadline fell the day after the council’s meeting. The council noted that there had been a number of changes to national planning policy contained in the updated NPPF, ranging from the introduction of the standard methodology and Housing Delivery Test to a renewed focus on design quality, as well as changes to the protection of biodiversity in light of the publication of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.

Yet despite these significant changes in national policy, Reigate & Banstead Borough Council considered its policies continue to be in ‘general conformity’ with the NPPF and no amendments were required. Notably when it comes to housing delivery, the council acknowledges that the standard methodology identifies a higher housing target than its currently adopted one (460 dpa as existing versus 644 dpa). However, it considers the provisions of the presumption in favour of sustainable development, in that other policies in the NPPF provide a strong reason for restricting development, and adverse impacts would outweigh benefits when assessing national policies as a whole.

The fact that the council can show a five year housing land supply, and achieved 119% of its target in the Housing Delivery Test, is considered further justification. Whilst the Borough does have significant constraints such as Green Belt and areas at higher risk of flooding, this is not particularly unusual. Other forms of development including employment, retail and leisure are considered by the council to be in line with the Core Strategy and therefore related policies again are not considered to need amending.

A conscious failure to plan?

The approach of not amending policies, having found them to be still up-to-date, harks back to the last decade when policies of the Local Plans from the late 1990s and early 2000s could be saved for continued use in advance of new Plan-making, often for many years, and indeed some live on.

However, the decision to save such policies was decided by the Secretary of State on advice from his own team of planners. There is currently no expectation in the NPPF or Planning Practice Guidance that an LPA’s reasons as to why it does not need to amend its policies following review will be externally audited, be it by the Secretary of State directly or by the Planning Inspectorate. The only route left for those who are aggrieved by a decision not to amend policy would be a judicial review which can be costly and time consuming. Questions must surely be raised about oversight in this process.

It is clearly correct that Local Plans and their policies are subject to independent examination. That would also be the case with any partial review of the Plan or any specific policy amendments.

Yet, when the decision is taken unilaterally by the council to retain a policy for another five years there is no such independent oversight. The approach taken by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council may perpetuate the current imbalance where some LPAs respond to changing circumstances with new and amended policies, whilst some continue to rely on policies that were first drafted many years, if not decades, ago. There is of course no further need to review the Plan after this current course of action for another five years.

The Government must therefore act to ensure this does not become the norm, and there is sufficient independent oversight for when LPAs do not consider it necessary to amend Local Plan policies upon review.

For more information on Local Plan Reviews please contact James Cording or Tim Burden.

11 July 2019