The new report Countryside Promises: Planning Realities highlights that the views of local communities are being overruled time and again, with major new housing development being allowed to sprawl across precious countryside. A summary is available here: http://bit.ly/XzAEeo

Launching the report, CPRE Chief Executive Shaun Spiers said:

‘CPRE has closely observed how the NPPF is being implemented on the ground and what we have seen is deeply disturbing. Despite the rhetoric of localism, it now seems that local communities are increasingly powerless to prevent damaging development even in the most sensitive locations.

‘The country badly needs more housing, including affordable housing in rural areas. But we will not get housing on the scale we need without popular consent, and there will be no popular consent unless local communities believe that that they are being listened to and that the planning system is minimising the loss of much-loved green fields.

Our evidence suggests that the NPPF is being used to impose unnecessary greenfield developments in the teeth of local opposition. Brownfield sites are being overlooked in favour of building on green fields that are easier for developers. At the same time, developers are providing less and less affordable housing to meet local needs.’

The findings of the report include:

• Across England, 20 major housing schemes, one as large as 2,000 houses, have been allowed, despite being either previously refused by the local authority or not being in line with local plans for the area. This contradicts Ministers’ commitments, made when launching the NPPF, to ‘put unprecedented power in the hands of communities to shape the places in which they live’.
• Valuable countryside is being lost despite Government commitments to maintain its protection. All of the schemes examined are in open countryside. In addition, local plans, are meanwhile calling for up to 80,000 new houses on land currently designated as Green Belt.
• Local authorities are being expected to allow more development on greenfield sites because it is argued that reuse of brownfield sites is no longer economically viable. Planning Inspectors have said there is no longer a policy requiring the use of brownfield sites before greenfield, contrary to Ministers’ assurances that policies must encourage brownfield sites to be brought back into use. Ministers have also accepted that pressure on local authorities to renegotiate planning agreements is expected to result in 10,000 fewer new affordable homes than were originally agreed.
• Local authorities that are producing plans are coming under pressure to allocate more greenfield sites than originally intended. And over half (52%) of local authorities do not have up to date adopted local plans in place. As a result, they will come under increased pressure to approve any application for housing development in line with policies in the NPPF, rather than with local views. In other areas, little or no time is being given to develop neighbourhood plans before schemes are approved.

Shaun Spiers concluded:

‘When the Government introduced its planning reforms last year it promised that the local plan would be the keystone of the planning system, and that the intrinsic value and beauty of the countryside would be recognised. Instead, we are seeing that applications for new housing are being approved regardless of their impact on local areas including developments in some of our most treasured countryside such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

‘We know that Planning Minister Nick Boles wants good quality, beautiful development, but his policies are not delivering. There can be no sustainable solution to this country’s housing problems unless there is a renewed focus on improving quality, increasing local control and minimising the loss of countryside. The NPPF is not currently delivering that mix. The Government urgently needs to rethink its approach.’