#NPPF2024 - what we thought about… (1) the “Grey Belt”
Live feed from a "grey belt" near you.
Confession-time: I don’t really know what “woke” means. Sure, I’ve said it a few times. I assumed it had something to do with being attentive to social justice issues. But, heck - I was way off. As ever, wisdom has arrived in the form of the great sage, socio-political commentator and (if you can believe it) one-time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom… Liz Truss. Who has recently explained, just after answering the question “what gets you up in the morning” by saying “the fight to save the West against the neo-Marxist orthodoxy” [Same here, Ed. 😘], that the beginning of woke-ism in this puny, whiny, over-bearing country of ours dates back to… you won’t believe it… no, you really won’t believe it… no, here it comes… wokeism in the UK actually began with:
The enactment of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act.
Well. Cripes. It’s a seismic moment for me. Realising I’ve been inadvertently taken in by the woke-rati with a blog that is read (I imagine) principally by neo-Marxist snowflakes. THANK YOU LIZ! Stay strong. Keep telling truth to power.
She’s right, of course. It’s been a non-stop downward spiral since Clem Atlee’s government gave us town planning in 1947. Reaching a nadir with Michael Gove’s December 2023 depressing surrender of an NPPF. Well, here’s a silver lining. Michael’s been reflecting on it all. Since he left government. He’s finally had some time for a good think. And you know what: he’s now concerned that that all of those nakedly politically expedient changes in 2023 might just have sent… “the wrong message” to Councils, and that they created a… wait for it… “bad vibe”. A bad vibe. I mean. That’s one way of describing it. What a shame it is that there was nobody at the time saying why all those Gove-y vibes were vibing so badly (other than here, here, here and hundreds of more expert and articulate pieces from others). Other than them.
But, onwards and upwards. You may’ve noticed: our new government’s consulting on changing things up. I wrote about some of the key proposals the day after they were published back in July: here. Since then, we’ve had reams of think pieces, seminars, Linkedin posts by the yard and - most important - 10,000 consultation responses sent into the Ministry. The Minister tells us the new NPPF’s due “before the end of the year”. I’m hoping for a release on Christmas morning. Crackers pulled, turkey eaten, the King’s speech wrapped up, curling up next to the fire with a brand new NPPF. Agh. The stuff dreams are made of. But until then…
How was it for you? What did you make of it all - these big, controversial new ideas on housing numbers, plan-making, grey belt, the transitional provisions - all of it? Are you pumped? Are you dismayed? While the tireless bods in the Ministry are sorting through the thousands of replies, how about a short series of pieces explaining what some of the loudest and largest industry voices have said about these new ideas. With a hope, maybe, that if we know where the areas of consensus and dispute are falling, it might just help us anticipate what’s coming next? Fancy it?
For a smattering of major consultation responses, have a look at (in alphabetical order - no favourites here!) at the following big hitters - ladies and gentlemen, bring on the acronyms:
The British Property Federation (“BPF”): here
The Countryside Charity (“CPRE" - the artist formerly known as the Campaign to Protect Rural England): here.
The Home Builders Federation (“HBF”): here.
The Land, Planning and Development Federation (“LPDF”): here.
The Local Government Association (“LGA”): here.
The Planning Officers Society (“POS”): here.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (“RIBA”): here.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (“RICS”): here.
The Royal Town Planning Institute (“RTPI”): here.
So. OK. In no particular order - topic #1 for this afternoon is… [drum-rolll] the grey belt. So. What did you make of it?
A very quick refresher:
What is “grey belt” land? Angela Rayner kept talking about “disused car parks and garages, and ugly wasteland”. Is that it? Nope. Not in the consultation draft, anyhow. Car parks and garages are, of course, already addressed in national policy on brownfield land.
So what is “grey belt” about? In a nutshell - it’s about land in the green belt, including brownfield land / PDL but also including greenfield land, that’s not making a chunky contribution to the 5 national green belt purposes. To get a little more technical: in the consultation draft NPPF and accompanying text, it’s defined in this way:
What’s “grey belt” for? It has 2 purposes: plan-making and decision-taking.
When it comes to plan-making: when plans are considering green belt release, they will have to turn first to brownfield land (nothing new there), and then after that “grey belt”, and only once that lot’s exhausted onto other non-brown non-grey greenfield green belt land [what could be simpler? Ed.].
For decision-taking, you’ll remember e.g. from cases like this that to support most kinds of housing development on greenfield sites in the green belt at the moment the NPPF requires the scheme’s benefits clearly to outweigh its harms, including harm to the green belt, so as to constitute “very special circumstances”. That’s the high policy bar which has meant, at least until recent years, successful planning applications in the green belt for e.g. housing have been relatively few and far between. That policy test hasn’t substantively changed since national green belt policy came along in 1955. So - if your scheme is in on “grey belt” land,, you will no longer need to meet that “very special circumstances” policy bar at all so long as (a) your site is “sustainable”, (b) it wouldn’t “fundamentally undermine the function of the Green Belt across the area of the plan as a whole” (which it normally won’t), (c) the Council has a less than 5 year housing land supply (which lots of green belt authorities don’t and, remember, there’ll be more housing land supply shortfalls than ever before - see above) or sub-75% housing delivery test or there is a “demonstrable need for land to be released for development of local, regional or national importance”, and (d) so long as any housing schemes meet the “golden rules” at §155 of the draft NPPF, i.e. include at least 50% affordable hosing along with necessary infrastructure improvements and public open space.
OK, so. That’s a whistle-stop tour of what’s on offer. What did we make of the idea:
On the definition:
The division seems to be between those who think grey belt will work too well, and those who don’t think it’ll work well enough. Whichever side of the fence you’re on, lots of folks - almost everyone, actually - think the definition is subjective (some say vague), so it’d be helpful to supplement it with guidance.
Many industry bodies (e.g. RICS, the RTPI, the HBF, BPF, LPDF…) like the idea overall, but are concerned it’s won’t well enough work as drafted. for instance, the HBF think that “not strongly performing against any Green Belt purpose” is a high bar that very little green belt land will get over. Similarly, the LPDF and RICS worry the policy will be rendered ineffective by the fact that most green belt land can be said to - at the very least - play a more-than-limited role in protecting the countryside from encroachment (i.e. the 3rd green belt purpose).
In the public sector, the POS have a similar concern - i.e. all green belt land plays a role in at least a couple of the wider strategic purposes. So the as-drafted definition is likely to set an unhelpfully high, self-defeating bar.
So some consultees get into the business of suggesting new definitions. The LPDF suggest a re-write focussing on limited performance against green belt purposes “as a whole”. The POS suggest focussing in on land which “makes a limited contribution to safeguarding the countryside from encroachment”. The HBF suggest “land on the edge of urban areas that is or has been used for recreation (e.g. golf courses), but that excludes playing fields” and other land “that has been significantly influenced or defined by the urbanising effects of development, transport infrastructure or non-agricultural human activity”. RICS suggests we focus just on purposes (a) and (b) - the “core founding” purposes.
On the other hand, the CPRE are against the “grey belt” idea altogether. They have a barrister’s opinion, no less, [I wouldn’t trust one of them, Ed.] which opines that “the proposed definition of ‘grey belt’ is too subjective and will open up scope for land speculators to drive through damaging developments through the planning appeals process”. Plus - and I love this bit - CPRE objects because “the use of the word ‘Belt’ is misleading and inappropriate as the new categorisation is not intended to surround or encompass anything”. Great stuff. After 70+ years, all of a sudden we’re concerned about misleading terminology in this area (when, of course, the “green belt” CPRE has so championed for so long is defined neither by being “green” or “a belt”). The CPRE’s concerned about legal challenges, they’re concerned about extended local plan examinations, they’re concerned about appeals. They’re concerned about… lots.
The LGA agree with the CPRE - it’s all too vague. But they aren’t against the “grey belt” idea altogether - they say we need clearer definitions to avoid endless appeals. We need guidance.
The RTPI came out in favour of “grey belt” overall, but they’re concerned about “unsustainable” sites meeting the definition. Again, they make the point that to understand what a “limited contribution” to purposes is all about is going to require guidance both in the NPPF and PPG.
On the “golden rules”:
The development industry doesn’t like the requirement for 50% affordable housing. Their concern - supported by a piece of research for the HBF and LPDF from Lichfields - is that a 50% policy won’t be viable in most places, which will lead to fewer schemes, non-stop viability testing, and delayed delivery. The HBF and LPDF’s suggestion is that, rather than a flat 50% target, the policy be pinned to 10% above whatever the latest local policy figure is. The LPDF and HBF are also strongly against the idea of government setting indicative benchmark land values for land released from or developed in the green belt. Again, the concerns are about unintended distortions in the land market, sites not coming forward for residential development or at all, and overall delays to delivery.
In the public sector, the LGA make a similar point, i.e. the risk is that a blanket 50% target risks inhibiting sites coming forward in the first place. The LGA also urges caution about a one-size-fits-all approach to benchmark land value as being insufficiently “sophisticated”.
The RTPI agrees - they come out against a blanket 50% affordable housing requirement, noting that it won’t always be viable, will result in non-stop viability fights, and lead to poor development. So they - just like the HBF and LPDF - float the idea of requiring 10% above whatever the local target is for affordable housing. The RTPI is against a nationally set benchmark land value.
The CPRE, on the other hand, think the 50% target should be “mandatory and non-negotiable”. Simple enough, I suppose. The POS suggests more or less the same thing, on the basis that - so they think - existing green belt isn’t worth anything anyway.
Further, lots are concerned that that the so-called “golden rules” at §155 NPPF shouldn’t apply to brownfield sites - as that would inadvertently make it harder for schemes to come forward than it is at the moment. And that they don’t work very well - if at all - as drafted with non-housing forms of development.
So. For what it’s worth. What do I think? Here’s what I think:
If the “grey belt” concept is going to work at all, as the government clearly wants it to, it has to be pinned to green belt purposes. There’s no other option. If the definition of grey belt were pinned to anything beyond green belt purposes (e.g. landscape / ecological value), or otherwise to things which might be said to be more “objective” (e.g. proximity to a rail station), then it becomes divorced from what the green belt is about, and we end up with a practical and conceptual disaster. So – I think the move in the draft NPPF to pin the grey belt definition to green belt purposes is the right move, and there isn’t really another realistic move to make.
But… lots of fiddly and important things follow from that starting point:
First, the green belt purposes are high-level, strategic purposes that the green belt is to meet as a whole. There’s always been a tension, a conceptual difficulty, and a methodological uncertainty about how to take those macro purposes and to apply them to individual parcels of land / schemes.
For instance:
Would any one parcel of land / scheme ever really constitute “unrestricted sprawl” (not really) – and, if not, how is the first purpose to be assessed in relation to individual parcels?
On the second purpose, is it just about towns, or is it about settlement separation more generally, and what kind of / extent of merging are we worried about? What if, for instance, there wouldn’t ever be any perception / sense / experience of settlements merging? What if they would merge to some degree, but wouldn’t ultimately come closer to one another than they are at the moment? These are the kinds of questions (if you can believe it!) that are taking hours of cross-examination at planning inquiries.
On the third purpose, to some degree, any green belt site which is edge of settlement (and so falls within the designated countryside) is fulfilling this purpose pretty strongly, so how are we to go about assessing the extent of any contribution/harm/impact.
The fifth green belt purpose – can that even be applied to individual schemes/parcels in a sensible way at all, and if not what are we supposed to do with it.
All of these questions are compounded because – for the many years we’ve had national policy on green belt purposes – what we’ve never had is any PPG-style supplementary guidance addressing how green belt assessments should actually work. So you get different councils/consultants adopting their own methodologies ad hoc. Which may not have been a critical problem until now, but it’s going to be an enormous problem if – as I think it should be – grey belt is pinned to green belt purposes.
So… I think the real answer to the uncertainty / subjectivity problem would be guidance on how the Ministry views the application of / assessment of these green belt purposes in real life. How should macro strategic purposes be considered in relation to micro land parcels / proposals. To close some of the open doors. Fill the loopholes. Resolve long-standing uncertainties. Etc. So that the methodology for LPAs and others to follow when considering contribution to green belt purposes is reasonably clear.
Does that close the door to subject judgment? No. And it never could. In the end, subjectivity (aka professional planning judgment) cannot be completely excluded from this process. It just can’t be. In the end, a judgment on green belt purposes is required, and there may well be more than one possible answer that could rationally be reached in forming judgment. But there’s nothing unusual about that. Professional judgment permeates our planning system. Every planning decision depends on the exercise of professional judgment. So do local plans.
So in the end, my suggested route through this thicket is to leave the proposed definition broadly no doubt tweaked but broadly unchanged (albeit to consolidate the two parts of it together into the NPPF glossary – it’s amazing how many of my clients just haven’t noticed the supplementary definition in the consultation text). But then to produce PPG on green beltpurposes, and grey belt, which gives the department’s view on the key issues on how the green belt purposes are to be looked at in the context of potential parcels of land / proposals.
More to come, friends, on the big-ticket items in the consultation. But for now, do your level best to keep your heads down, avoid the noise, stay clear of any “bad vibes”, and make sure not to do anything even remotely “woke”. Enjoy these early days of Autumn, and try your level best to #keeponplanning.
