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19th January, 2018 by Chris May , Jamie Childs , Jay Mehta
On 12 December 2016 the Government made a Written Ministerial Statement (“WMS”) which set out that relevant policies for the supply of housing in a neighbourhood plan should not be deemed “out of date” under paragraph 49 of the National Planning Policy Framework (“Framework”) where all of the following apply:
The WMS should be seen in light of the recent amendments introduced by the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017 which require a local planning authority to have regard to a “post-examination” draft neighbourhood development plan in their decisions on planning applications so far as this is material to the application (in section 70(2)(aza). A post examination draft neighbourhood plan will not have been adopted for the purposes of the WMS requirements but may be given weight in decisions on planning applications and it may now be argued that these should be given greater weight given that as soon as they are formally adopted the WMS may apply.
Following the Supreme Court decision in Hopkins Homes (see our article here), the Government updated the National Planning Practice Guidance (“NPPG”) in relation to the WMS
Several developers launched a legal challenge to the Government’s decision to make the WMS. In short, that decision has now been dismissed by the High Court and the NPPG (see link above) remains in full force.
We summarise the key findings and implications of the High Court’s decision below. This decision shall remain valid if and until such time as the case is successfully appealed or the provisions of the NPPG are updated, perhaps following the impending revisions to the Framework:
Please contact a member of the Howes Percival Planning Team if you would like to discuss this case or the issues it raises in more detail.
To contact us, please fill out this form and we will get back in touch as soon as possible. Your personal data will be processed in accordance with our privacy policy which can be found here.