Agenda and minutes

          Apologies were received from Councillors Elkins and Stainton.

Members and Officers are invited to make any declaration of pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests that they may have in relation to items on this agenda, and are reminded that they should re-declare their interest before consideration of the items or as soon as the interest becomes apparent.

Members and Officers should make their declaration by stating:

a)             the item they have the interest in

b)             whether it is a pecuniary/personal interest and/or prejudicial interest

c)             the nature of the interest

          There were no declarations of interest.

The Committee will be asked to approve as a correct record the Minutes of the Planning Policy Committee held on 6 June 2024.

          The minutes of the Planning Policy Committee held on 6 June 2024 were approved and signed by the Chair.

          The Chair confirmed that there were no urgent items for this meeting.

To receive questions from the public (for a period of up to 15 minutes).

There were no public questions submitted for this meeting.

This report is intended to set out the proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published on 30 July 2024 and the key implications for Arun arising from these revisions, and to seek agreement from the Committee to the draft consultation response to the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on behalf of Arun District Council.

The Chair thanked officers for the work undertaken in compiling responses to the consultation being undertaken by the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) on the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), set out at appendix 1.  Members were asked to limit their comments to the questions contained within the consultation. 

The Interim Head of Planning Policy was invited by the Chair to present the report to the Committee.  He advised that the MHCLG consultation on the NPPF proposed fundamental changes to the way Arun District Council carries out its planning function.  He thanked members for attending the all member NPPF briefing session held on 9 September 2024. 

He reminded members of the proposed key changes to the NPPF set out at paragraph 1.4 of the report, as follows:

·       The proposed housing numbers under the new standard methodology will result in an increased housing target in Arun of 1,400 dwellings per year, a 5% increase.  The proposed increase for the whole of West Sussex was 38% which would make it more difficult for councils to meet the Duty to Cooperate.  The Government’s proposals sought to ask each local authority to do its part, whereas the previous methodology had included a factor for urban and metropolitan areas to take higher densities.  The proposal to make the housing numbers mandatory instead of advisory would remove the circumstances that had previously justified Arun to propose less housing in the Local Plan.  If the required housing numbers were not found, the Local Plan could potentially be found unsound.   Local plans would be required to set out ‘how’ the housing figure  will be delivered and not ‘if’ it will be delivered.  For the first time the Council will be required to demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply at all times. This removed the previous protection for recently adopted Local plans and potentially negating the benefits of having an up-to-date Local Plan.    Arun has already found it difficult to demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply and had failed the housing delivery test by scoring under 75% of its target for a number of years.  Meeting the housing target was likely to become more challenging and lead to significantly more speculative development on unsuitable sites being granted planning permission on appeal.  The 5% housing land supply buffer for all local authorities was being re-introduced requiring them to demonstrate a 5.25-year housing land supply in all cases.  However, Arun due to its previous housing undersupply and the difficulty of meeting the high numbers will need to keep its 20% buffer.  This will result in Arun’s 5-year housing land supply becoming a 6-year housing land supply, whereas currently it was at 4.17 years. 

·       No further changes were proposed to Neighbourhood plans since those made to paragraph 14 of the NPPF in December 2024 that had given additional protection to those produced within the previous five years.  However, although good in theory in practice the test is whether the identified need will be based on the overall housing need  ...  view the full minutes text for item 231.