Better, faster plan-making in England
As a member of the public and occasional “customer” of the planning system, I welcome the draft National Planning Policy Framework from the Practitioners Advisory Group. It shows that concise (and sufficiently comprehensive) policy guidance is possible at the national level. There is a need for some fine-tuning but it generally sums up a coherent national position at an appropriate level of detail. Previous efforts by DCLG and its predecessor departments have failed to achieve this. The PAG is also correct that advising on good practice is not a role for government. Eric Pickles and Greg Clark were right to call for a bonfire of gratuitous advice and overly prescriptive guidance, even if they were wrong in assigning the blame for a clogged up system on planners rather than on Whitehall and Westminster. Going outside of DCLG to a small group who between them represent a wide range of interests was a very good idea.
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