Article by Ian Barnett, National Land Director, Leaders Romans Group (LRG)
Land use is under extreme pressure at the moment, partly due to the government’s ambitious and unyielding housing targets but also debate over whether existing farmland is better utilised for energy or food production.
The current consultation on a new Land Use Framework will no doubt add to the pressure, specifically in the context of recent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework and an emerging Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The changes to date represent quite a significant output for the government’s first half year, but will it work in addressing this delicate balance?
I have long argued that any large-scale change to land use requires a national plan – one that removes short-term politics from the equation and allows for a coherent, long-term development strategy.
A national plan would set out a clear framework for where and how development should (and should not) take place, ensuring that housing, infrastructure, and economic growth are planned in a coordinated manner with the least impact on best and most versatile farmland.
The government is currently consulting on a Land Use Framework, to be published later this year. Its contents will include the principles that government will apply to policy with land use implications; a description of how policy levers will develop and adapt to support land use change; a release of land use data and analysis to support public and private sector innovation in spatial decision making, and the development of tools to support land managers in practice.
The consultation document makes a commitment to ‘taking a spatial approach’, stating in this context how location and climate change impact on land use and must be taken into account at a national level, along with the use of ‘land use incentives’ and transforming, ‘how government makes policy and the information we provide to decision makers’. However, on reading the document I feel that the strategic, spatial approach is somewhat lacking: it appears to make the assumption that that each piece of land has just one use – failing to fully appreciate, for example, that housing developments can deliver shade and biodiversity without land having to be singled out for this purpose. Interestingly, this document – which is produced by DEFRA, not the MHCLG – makes only one reference to the National Planning Policy Framework. Ditto biodiversity net gain (BNG) despite the fact that BNG provides the vital link between housing (and, from November this year, infrastructure too) and environmental protection. So the intent is there, but there does seem to be an absence of joined-up thinking.
While there is undoubtedly a role for local voices in development decisions, as we have seen from planning under the previous government, local politics in a thorn in the side of any change in land use.
In my view, a national spatial plan is the obvious answer. One option is the return of the National Infrastructure Committee and an ‘infrastructure first’ approach which brings together infrastructure, housing, energy and climate change in a de-politicised environment to expedite the creation of new settlements.
In terms of removing the influence of politics in the allocation of land, there is much that we could learn from the German or Dutch systems. Germany’s strategic planning decisions are made through a series of regional plans at a federal level; the Netherlands has a system more akin to a single national plan.
In the UK, the closest we ever have got to this model was the Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS). RSSs established a spatial vision and strategy specific to a region, for example, including the identification of areas for development with a 20 year timescale while also providing direction for Local Development Frameworks on a local (borough/district) level.
An important component of a national spatial plan is a Green Belt review. The government has already made bold moves to enable Green Belt release – specifically the coining of the term Grey Belt to determine land suitable for use. But Grey Belt has proven to be problematic – something that I previously identified as a ‘soundbite in need of a policy’. ‘Grey Belt’ works well as a slogan: it’s simple and concise, visual and intriguing, immediately evoking images of unattractive scraps of land which would benefit from redevelopment. But, as the House of Lords Built Environment committee inquiry into the Grey Belt concluded, the Green Belt definition has been, ‘implemented in a somewhat rushed and incoherent manner.’ The inquiry did not believe, ‘that it is likely to have any significant or lasting impact on planning decision-making’. In my view the updated guidance will lead to a plethora of speculative applications and appeals, each aiming to determine whether a site is Green or Grey Belt.
If the objective is simply to build more houses (or at least grant more planning permissions) then this will undoubtedly happen as a result of the new NPPF and PPG. However, if the government’s intention is to deliver housing at the required scale in the right areas through a plan-led system then a different approach would be better.
Government policy concerning the Green Belt still falls short of a review. Why should a 70+year old policy not be subject to a review? A review is defined as ‘a formal assessment of something with the intention of instituting change if necessary’. On this basis, everyone should support a Green Belt Review: the CPRE should want a review (after all, a review could increase the amount of Green Belt land from 13%); Nimbys (who, if it is warranted, would gain the protection for the land that they fight so passionately for) and certainly developers should want a review.
There can’t be much legislation dating from the 1940s that is fit for purpose today. A review of the Green Belt needs to be undertaken in the context of the needs of the country – transport, environment, housing, leisure, food, and economics.
My view is that the growth agenda can only be met satisfactorily if development is assessed and brought forward at a national level and a national plan is the government’s greatest hope of meeting the many divergent views on land use today.
Ian Barnett is the National Land Director, Leaders Romans Group (LRG).