Observations from Rob Rasberry, Director of Masterplanning, on design-related points in the proposed amendments to the NPPF.
Commentary on the proposed changes to NPPF have, quite rightly, been focused on the key updates in relation to increasing housing delivery and the grey belt.
However, there are several proposed changes related to design.
Reduced reference to ‘beautiful’
The emphasis on “beautiful” buildings, homes and places has been reduced with the changing of the wording of Chapter 12 now being “Achieving well-designed places” and the word beautiful being deleted in several other places. However, some references to beautiful do remain in several places still.
The tilted balance
It is proposed to add a new tail-piece to paragraph 11.d.ii, which means that the tilted balance should be applied when assessing development proposals against policies in the NPPF as a whole, in relation to the location and design of the development, and for securing affordable housing. The Government’s consultation sets out that this has been introduced as a safeguard to ensure planning permission is only granted to high quality proposals.
Higher densities
Paragraph 129 is proposed to be deleted. In the current iteration of the NPPF, this paragraph sets out uplifts in the average density of residential development may be inappropriate if the resulting built form would be wholly out of character with the existing area. This could be a very helpful amendment for schemes where there are strong justifications for higher densities.
Would you welcome these changes? Let us know your thoughts.