Water and nature must be factored in to Government’s planning overhaul

Water and nature must be factored in as the Government overhauls the planning regime to meet its national housebuilding ambitions. Those messages emerged from interest groups last week after the Government released the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

Among other things, this:

• Set new annual housing targets at 370,000 across England, with higher mandatory targets in places facing the most acute affordability pressures. This is to meet the 1.5m new homes over five years pledge.

• Set out a development hierarchy, with brownfield sites first, but then a requirement on councils to review their greenbelt boundaries and prioritise lower quality ‘grey belt’ land for development if needed to meet the targets. Any development on remaining greenbelt land must meet strict requirements including on amenity and social housing.

• Provided £100m more for councils’ planning teams and 300 additional planning officers, “to turbocharge growth”.

Water UK pointed out that the provision of sustainable water and sewerage services is essential for achieving this growth agenda and that there is a “glaring omission [in the NPPF] of water infrastructure as critical infrastructure which underpins all other growth, including housing and nascent industrial sectors”.

Among other things, Water UK called for: 

• The NPPF itself and the supporting Planning Policy Guidance to afford significant weight to water infrastructure – as a minimum through “policy support within the NPPF at least as strong as that afforded to low carbon energy”. 

• Guidance to be issued to Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to reflect the urgent need for water and sewerage infrastructure, its statutory underpinning, its engineering constraints and its role in facilitating growth. 

• Government to introduce a national water efficiency baseline in Building Regulations, and to implement Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Act to make sustainable drainage an integral part of new build design.

• The introduction of an “expedited Section 35 designation process which developers can navigate with certainty and clear, depoliticised criteria” to develop nationally significant infrastructure projects.  

• A more strategic approach to managing nutrient neutrality and water neutrality.

  
  

Meanwhile, nature groups reacted with concern to the planning overhaul, notably the release of large areas of what is currently greenbelt land for development. For instance, Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL), said: “Any sacrifice of greenbelt protection should be approached with great care. We need a plan-led approach to any release that doesn't open the door to speculative development.

“Local Wildlife Sites, irreplaceable habitat & Local Nature Recovery Strategy priorities should all be off the table. In a nature crisis, the Government should take as bold an approach to extending protection for important wildlife sites and access to nature as it does for earmarking land for development”.

WCL has launched a campaign calling for new planning rules to be ‘wilder by design,’ through supporting wildlife recovery, climate resilience and health and wellbeing improvements.

The Government has started to negotiate the issues in a Planning reform working paper: development and nature recovery. The proposals include a Nature Restoration Fund, into which developers would pay to help meet legal nature targets.