The latest revisions of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) propose a significant shift in methodology for calculating the numbers of dwellings Councils plan for.
Sophie Middleton, our Principal Planner talks about the implications for house delivery.
Shaking up the standard method
Until 2018, when the Government introduced the standard method, Local Planning Authorities prepared their own housing needs assessment. Since then, the Government has been struggling to find the right formula to pinpoint the number of homes for which Councils must make provision.
As part of the latest proposed revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework the Government has included a shake up the standard method for calculating housing need.
It proposes to shift from a method based on demographic projections to one that starts with the number of homes in an area.
Straight from the top!
The Secretary of State’s Written Ministerial Statement advises:
“A mandated method alone is, however, insufficient to deliver on our scale of ambition and the current ‘standard method’ is not up to the job. It relies on decade-old population projections, an arbitrary ‘urban uplift’ that focuses too heavily on London and it lacks ambition across large parts of the country. We are therefore updating the standard method and raising the overall level of these targets – from around 300,000 to approximately 370,000. The new method provides a stable and balanced approach. It requires local authorities to plan for numbers of homes that are proportionate to the size of existing communities, by taking 0.8 per cent of existing stock as a floor, which is broadly consistent with the average rate of housing growth over recent years. It also then incorporates an uplift based on how out of step house prices are with local incomes, using an affordability multiplier of 0.6 per cent, up from 0.25 per cent in the previous method.”
How would this add up?
All regions, with the exception of London, would see significant increases in the required rates of housing delivery.
For example, the East of England would see the housing need rise from 35,101 to 44,858 a 27.8% increase pa.
Individual Authorities in the region would see significant increases in their housing need – Cambridge would see an uplift of 381dpa, Chelmsford an uplift of 493dpa, Dacorum an uplift of 297dpa and at the top of the pile, an uplift of 660dpa in St Albans.
Back to the drawing board
The Secretary of State recently confirmed that Councils with emerging Local Plans at second consultation stage that provide significantly fewer homes than the new methodology states (more than 200dpa) will be required to go back to the drawing board.
A number of these Authorities including St Albans and Dacorum are in the process of preparing new Local Plans, with St Albans set to proceed with Regulation 19 consultation in the coming months.
The St Alban’s Regulation 18 Plan identified a need for 888dpa, not the 1,544 required under the new methodology.
It remains to be seen whether these Authorities will be able to continue with their plans or whether they will be forced to start over.
How helpful is the proposal?
While we’ve already seen outrage from some Conservative Council Leaders regarding the significant uplifts in their administrative areas with concerns that the associated infrastructure has not been considered, it remains to be seen how this would work in reality.
The significant uplift could also result in increased pressure on already overworked Council Planning Departments through the submission of more speculative applications and resultant appeals.
We welcome these changes to provide much needed housing. However, work is needed to ensure these houses can be delivered on the ground, where they are most needed, and appropriately served by meaningful infrastructure provision.
Get in touch
If you have interests in any of these areas or want to know how the changes to the standard method for calculating housing need might affect you, please get in contact with the team at Barker Parry.
