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National Planning Policy Framework Published – Thoughts on the Historic Environment
On the 27th March 2012 the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published. The Minister for Planning, Greg Clark, in his address to Parliament set out the objectives of this document as:
– To put unprecedented power in the hands of communities to shape the places in which they live;
– To better support growth in the next generation the chance that our generation has had to have a decent home, and to allow the jobs to be created on which our prosperity depends; and
– To ensure that the places we cherish – our countryside, towns and cities – are bequeathed to the next generation in a better condition that they are now
One of the key drivers for these objectives is the presumption for sustainable development. With the document replacing Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment (PPS5), what are the changes to the way that our Heritage Assets and Historic Environment?
In his forward the Minister sets out that our Historic Environment – buildings, landscapes, towns and villages – can be better cherished if their spirit of place thrives, rather than withers. This indicates that there are moves to ensure that protection should be in place to ensure long time viability, maintaining the Historic Environment and ensuring the sense of place is maintained for future generations – A sustainable Historic Environment. Therefore, it must be key not just to consider sustainability as a green issue and in the restrictive sense of energy efficiency but more for the long term security for future generations.
So what does the NPPF say for the Historic Environment? At a local level it calls for Local Planning Authorities to have up to date evidence about their Historic Environment. This will allow them to assess the significance of their assets and what contribution this has to their environment. These assessments should be used to predict the likelihood of unidentified assets will be discovered in the future. Local Authorities are encouraged to maintain or have access to a Historic Environment Record. Local Authorities are encouraged to undertake, where appropriate, Landscape Character Assessments. These two paragraphs, 169 and 170, appear to replace Policy HE2 of PPS5, where there are similar principles on Historic Environment Records and evidence to predict the undiscovered Heritage Assets in the future. One key principle that seems to be missing is that of the regional and local approach, previously PPS5 Policy HE3 set out that a strategy should be prepared to ensure a proactive conservation approach to the significance of place and its potential for a catalyst for regeneration. This idea is embedded into the principle for sustainability, but I would fear that if only this section of the NPPF is utilised without reference to the more detailed Historic Environment sections, as explained shortly, that we take a step back with Local Planning and don’t encourage development as an opportunity to bring redundant Heritage Assets into a long term viable use.
PPS5 covered 16 policies, broken down into areas of consideration and strategies for implementation. The Historic Environment is covered in the NPPF by 16 paragraphs, paragraphs 126 to 141. So we have gone from 16 policies to 16 paragraphs, but have the principles remained the same. In simple terms, the answer seems to be yes. The NPPF reiterates the principle of significance of the Heritage Asset and the character of place, the importance of recording these assets and monitoring to prevent deterioration not only to recorded Heritage Assets but also those that could be discovered in the future. The opportunity still exists for developments within Conservation Areas and World Heritage sites that better reveal their significance and make a positive contribution to better reveal the assets significance. PPS5 sets out a more detailed set of objectives that the policy must meet when compared to NPPF, an example of this is Policy HE11: Enabling development, a list of criteria that should be considered is listed and is a reiteration of English Heritage Guidance, within NPPF this has been significantly shortened to an abbreviated definition without a list of justifications that should be met. The risk here is that without proper guidance on the criteria that should be met Local Authorities do not implement the guidance correctly. Whilst the NPPF tries to move away from the prescriptive guidance of the past, as was seen in PPG15 and PPG16, the predecessors of PPS5, I believe that history demonstrates that implementation by Local Authorities can be varied and inconsistent.
The new NPPF seeks to continue the principles of PPS5, whilst meeting the goals of the government to reduce policy and red tape, but only time will tell on how this is implemented and utilised as a tool for progress by Local Authorities, Consultants and Owners.
