Key points from the Planning Review announcement were:

• A 2023 deadline for all local authorities to have an up-to-date local plan. Local Plans for each Local Authority identify a five-year supply of specific deliverable sites that should be updated annually (increased to 6 years for those with a record of persistent under delivery of housing). Government will require all local authorities to have up-to-date local plans by December 2023. For those that don't (c25% at the start of 2019) Government is suggesting that it is prepared to intervene, considering appropriate action on a case by case basis.
• Raising the Housing Delivery Test to 75%. The Housing Delivery test is undertaken annually and looks at delivery of housing against the local plans. Previously only those achieving <45% were made to adopt presumption in favour of sustainable development. This increase in requirement is favourable to the larger housebuilders as they have a record of building out the sites that have implementable planning. In 2019, 47 of 309 Local Authorities were below the 75% threshold.
• 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025. The paper references the Government's wider commitment to have net zero emissions by 2050 and that Future Homes Standard (FHS) will require up to 80% lower carbon emissions from 2025 for all new homes.
• Increased focus on use of Brownfield. The report talks of encouraging local authorities to take a more proactive approach to enabling home building, including housing-led regeneration of their high streets, building upwards on already developed land and stations, densifying gently in existing residential areas and making the most of their underutilised brownfield land.

Equity research firm Jefferies commented: “We remain more wary of the change in permitted development rights to demolish vacant commercial, industrial and residential to replace with ‘well designed’ homes which meet natural light requirements, with the contention likely to be what constitutes ‘well designed’.”