New planning guidance could create more problems than it solves

摘要

It is nearly four years since the coalition took charge with a promise to reform the planning system, and there has been a wide range of changes during that time. But the government is not finished. The latest initiative is a suite of planning practice guidance, designed to sit alongside and support implementation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The guidance can be traced back to October 2012, when the government - concerned that existing practice documents had become unwieldy - invited Lord Taylor of Goss Moor to lead a review of the scope and form of future guidance (professional, 18January 2013). Taylor recommended existing material should be "whittled down to an essential, coherent, accessible and well-managed suite of guidance", and made available as a live resource hosted on a single website. The government duly acted on his advice and launched a "beta" version of the new suite of online guidance in October, followed by a final version a couple of weeks ago. The new guidance resulted in the cancellation of more than 100 different documents.