Dan Peters 09 June 2014

Councils warn of planning by appeal

Councils will today claim the principle of a local plan-led approach is being ‘undermined’.

Cllr Tony Newman, of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) environment and housing board, is expected to tell members of the communities and local government (CLG) committee there is a ‘risk that national policy could be reinvented through planning by appeal’.

In written evidence to the committee’s inquiry into the operation of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the LGA pointed out that ‘costly appeals’ were ‘contrary to the Government’s aims to reduce costs and simplify planning processes for both developers and councils’.

The LGA has urged the committee to recommend the creation of a framework to ‘evaluate the operation and impact of the NPPF in terms of outcomes over a longer term’.

It said: ‘In the absence of such a framework, there is a danger that there could be an over reliance on what can more easily be measured in the short-term or a reliance on anecdotal evidence.’

The committee is also due to hear from the Royal Town Planning Institute, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, District Councils’ Network, Planning Officers’ Society and National Association of Local Councils.