The coalition has written to the Prime Minister, arguing that decisions on a new NPPF, or National Planning Policy Framework, due to be made this summer, could risk "raised but unmet expectations of affordable housing, an obsession with planning reform to increase supply while developers scale back their plans, and a planning system that can no longer ensure that development works for nature, communities and the climate."
The letter says, "measures around compulsory purchase; limiting “hope value†claims by landowners; expanding public bodies’ land assembly capabilities and ability to contract out delivery to diversify supply are all positive, as would be stronger measures to make sure developers build out what they have permission for. These measures, alongside the increased funding for the social and affordable homes programme, should support good development in the right locations.
"But in the short-term, repeated weakening of planning policy is reducing environmental and other protections and leading to more speculative and poor-quality development in the wrong locations. The impact that poor-quality development in the wrong locations has is being made worse by what is happening to housing supply as housebuilders scale back their plans in the face of higher costs and weak demand."
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