University News Last updated 28 March 2012
Full details of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) were revealed on 27 March to help make the UK planning system less complex and more accessible. The NPPF sets out to protect the environment and promote sustainable growth.
Alister Scott, Professor of Spatial Planning and Governance at the University, has expressed his views and concerns on the NPPF. Alister said: “The NPPF is a significant improvement over the original draft. The challenge of reducing so much planning policy to a short piece is ambitious but it is a digestible document which should be readily intelligible to the public.
There is still a passion within government and business to label planners as the enemy of enterprise. This is an insult to the work and action of many local authority planners who work tirelessly to help make good development changes happen despite the political processes resulting in a series of never ending changes”.
By replacing over a thousand pages of national policy with around fifty, it is hoped that the NPPF will encourage people and communities back into planning.