An absence of up-to-date local plans stemming from the uncertainty surrounding the current requirement to review existing policies is causing difficulties for developers and local authorities alike, according to new research from planning and development consultancy Lichfields.
While the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was meant to address the problem of outdated local plans by requiring a review of plans every five years, the new research has found that this process is not operating effectively.
The report, entitled ‘Marking Your Own Homework: Interpretation and Application of the Requirement to Review Local Plan Policies Every Five Years,’ highlights three key findings and recommendations:
- The current requirement to review local plans within five years is ineffective at ensuring local plans are kept up to date.
- There has been a lack of clear guidance on what authorities must consider when undertaking their review.
- The roll-out of the plan making reforms is inadvertently delaying plan updates and undermining the review process.
On this latter point, Simon Coop, senior director at Lichfields, said: “The intention of the plan-making reforms is to encourage a more rolling rhythm of updates, ensuring plans and their evidence are routinely kept up to date. However, the proposed reforms are currently having the opposite effect.
“The regulation, policy and guidance to enable the preparation of local plans under the reforms will not be available until at least autumn 2024 and will be dependent on the timings and outcomes of the general election.”
The report examined 55 local authorities which adopted a local plan containing strategic policies in the 2016/17 and 2017/18 monitoring years, i.e., just over five years ago. It provides several case studies to demonstrate varying ways in which local plan reviews have been conducted and reveals there is no standard approach to the process of reviewing local plans and authorities’ interpretation of the process can differ significantly.
Currently, law, policy and guidance make a clear requirement for five-year reviews to assess whether policies need updating but does not expressly prescribe a method for this. The Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) provides some matters to consider but its guidance is neither specific nor binding, leading to variations in how local authorities can review their policies.
Helping to fill this void, the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) produced a Local Plan Route Mapper Toolkit in 2021 to assist with local authorities’ local plan reviews. This toolkit was completed and published by many local authorities in the Lichfields sample, showing how valued this more specific guidance is.
Coop added: “While there is a statutory requirement to undertake a review of local plans every five years, local authorities are not necessarily required to update their plans because of their review. An update would only follow the review if it were deemed necessary. While the PPG states most plans are likely to require updating this does not always happen.”
Lichfields research reveals most local authorities that undertook a review did conclude that an update was necessary with only five of the local authorities that had completed a five-year review determining that no update was needed.
Common reasons for plan or policy updates among the sample authorities included updates to national planning policy, responding to the climate crisis, and changing local housing need figures. This latter point was particularly prevalent in local authorities’ justifications for undertaking an update.
The research found the vast majority (but not all: 47 out of 55) of local authorities that are required to have undertaken an initial review of their local plans had completed this review or commenced work on the update process within the five-year period. However, despite the legal requirement to undertake a review within the requisite five-year timeframe, there did not seem to be any consequence for those authorities that failed to do so.
For those authorities whose reviews resulted in a decision to update the local plan, this was just the start of a lengthy process to replace out-of-date policies. Given the nature of the plan-making process, the time between the adoption of the existing local plan and the expected adoption of the updated local plan often extends beyond 10 years. The plans and any policies found to be ineffective during the review continue to be in place while a new plan is prepared.
Guidance on a new plan-making system is expected in autumn 2024. The proposed changes to the system first emerged under the December 2022 consultations on planning reform under the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill and a consultation on plan-making reforms was then held in summer 2023. The proposals recognise and seek to address the slow-moving nature of plan-making, including improving the requirement to undertake a five-year review of plans. There will be a clearer requirement to meet a new 30-month timeframe for preparing and adopting plans which, if achievable, should help to reduce this long wait.
Only four of 55 local authorities in the Lichfields analysis had adopted an updated local plan at the time of writing (January 2024).
