Impact of Angela Rayner’s Planning Policy Changes on London’s Future
Last week, Angela Rayner gave Marks and Spencer permission to demolish and rebuild their flagship Marble Arch store, in line with plans first submitted to Westminster City Council in February 2021. In between those dates, the proposal was considered by Westminster and by Sadiq Khan (both of whom approved it), by a public inquiry and by Michel Gove (who overruled them all and turned it down), by the High Court (which overturned Gove’s decision), and by Rayner (who gave the go-ahead). Whatever view you take of the proposals, these layers of decision-taking and months of delay cannot be right – the reconstruction phase of the Notre Dame project took less time.
Major Reforms in Planning Policy
Against this backdrop, the Deputy Prime Minister has announced major reforms of planning this week – a consultation on planning decision processes on Monday and now a new National Planning Policy Framework. The consultation paper proposes a national “scheme of delegation” to ensure that more planning decisions are taken by planning officers, rather than by planning committees. The paper also proposes smaller strategic committees to agree documents such as opportunity area planning frameworks, and seeks to beef up training for planning committee members.
The proposals have been widely welcomed as a helpful act of streamlining, which reduces the risk of capricious committee decisions to reject proposals even when they are in line with local planning policy. Such refusals may lead to amendment and a new application, or to appeals to the planning inspectorate, but cause delay and incur cost either way.
London’s Unique Position
As ever, London is a bit different. The capital already leads the way in delegating planning decisions and in processing applications fast. The most recent government stats show that in the year to June 2024, 97 per cent of decisions were delegated to officers, more than in any other region. Some boroughs delegated nearly all decisions.
London boroughs work fast too, deciding an average of 93 per cent of major applications within government-mandated deadlines (or other deadlines agreed with applicants) in the two years to June 2024, compared to 90 per cent or fewer in other regions. The capital also has lower rates of decisions being overturned on appeal than most other regions. The system works efficiently.
But it is not enabling the homes London needs to be built. London planning authorities turned down more applications than in other regions: 20 per cent across the capital compared to 15 per cent across England, and as many as a third in some outer London boroughs. Total application numbers are for around 60,000 homes per year, and their number has fallen by a third since 2016, significantly faster than in other regions.
New National Planning Policy Framework
That is where the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) comes in. It confirms binding targets for local authorities across England. London’s new target is around 88,000 homes per year. That’s higher than the 80,000 target proposed after the general election, but lower than the 99,000 target that the Conservative government set in 2020 (though in 2022 the Conservatives also made targets “advisory”). It is, nonetheless, a huge jump from the current London Plan target of 52,000 homes per year, let alone the average 38,000 net additional homes built over the past five years.
