Grace Denis outlined recent changes the Government has made to the planning system in an article here. Those changes included amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and, in this article, we take a closer look at those. The NPPF is a set of guidelines and principles against which both local and regional planning policy must be made, and individual planning decisions should be considered.
The wider context
Paragraph 85 states that “Planning policies and decisions should help create the conditions in which businesses can invest, expand and adapt. Significant weight should be placed on the need to support economic growth and productivity, taking into account both local business needs and wider opportunities for development.”
As this national policy applies to both local plans and individual decisions, it can be used by developers of proposed data centres, gigafactories and supercomputer sites on their planning applications. Decisions should be taken to help create conditions for businesses to invest and expand. Local Planning authorities should not take a stance that restricts the supply of land for this. Furthermore, significant weight on the support for growth and productivity means that creating these conditions for investment and expansion can be used to outweigh other (potentially negative) aspects of the planning application. This policy uprates the importance of business in the planning balance.
Local Plan requirements
Every local planning authority ought to have or be bringing forward a local plan, setting the policy for their area for the next 15+ years. Paragraph 86 states that those planning policies should: “pay particular regard to facilitating development to meet the needs of a modern economy, including by identifying suitable locations for uses such as laboratories, gigafactories, data centres, digital infrastructure, freight and logistics”.
Landowners and developers operating in the modern economy can use this requirement to push local authorities to include suitable land. If they can put forward suitable land in the ‘call for sites’ consultation in the local development plan process, these recent changes will make it much more likely that the site will be accepted.
For more information, please contact David Bird on 0117 314 5382 in our Planning & Infrastructure Team.
