NPPF published

Greg Clark got up in the House of Commons just after 12.30 to announce the publication of the NPPF in its final form, but I have not yet managed to get my hands on the published text.

No doubt this will become available on the internet later today. Unlike 'the usual suspects' (National Trust, CPRE and sundry newspapers) I do not propose to rush into premature comment.

What planning lawyers like me will be looking for is a clear indication as to how much of previous guidance on policy and procedure will be preserved in one form or another. We shall be looking in particular at how many existing circulars (if any) have been cancelled, and whether the detailed contents of certain PPGs/PPSs have been re-published in some other form outside the scope of the NPPF itself.

The views I have heard expressed by my own colleagues and other planning professionals vary from the expectation at one end of the scale that quite a lot of the existing guidance will in fact be preserved and will continue to apply, to the possibility at the other end of the scale that we really will be faced with a completely clean sheet, with all the resulting uncertainty that this will create.

UPDATE: It is now on the CLG website, at : http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/2115939.pdf

© MARTIN H GOODALL