The HHA supports the view expressed by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee today that the Government must make significant changes to improve the draft National Planning Policy Framework.

In particular, the HHA agrees that the central principle of sustainable development must be properly defined. The committee’s proposed definition, that sustainable development ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of existing communities and future generations to meet their own needs’, embodies key elements of the HHA’s own proposed definition, which also favours a specific benchmark whereby sustainable development is demonstrably ‘compatible with the natural and historic environment in which it is situated’.

However, the HHA would still like to see more explicit reference to the importance of Britain’s historic buildings, which are major contributors to the country’s social, environmental and economic well-being.

It was explicitly acknowledged in planning policy guidance for heritage, PPS 5, published only in 2010, that the best way to conserve a historic building is to help ensure an economically viable use for it. At present, the section on the historic environment in the NPPF does not articulate this idea adequately.

Of equal importance are the settings of our historic houses, which would lack the magnetic appeal that they have for domestic and foreign visitors if the environment within which each is set should be damaged by low-quality development. There should therefore, be a clear presumption in the NPPF against development which adversely affects the setting of a listed building and it must be explicit in the Framework that key elements such as housing targets must not be used to adversely affect the historic environment.

The Select Committee’s report also reflects the concerns expressed by the HHA that the content of the NPPF has ‘suffered in the pursuit of brevity’ and that there may, as a consequence, be significant gaps in planning policy and guidance.
The HHA also supports the Committee’s call for a sensible transition period with a clear and realistic timetable, to allow for time to update local plans and ensure the bedding-in of related legislation, such as the Localism Act
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The HHA hopes that the Communities and Local Government Select Committee report will encourage the Government to make significant changes to the National Planning Policy Framework and that the Government will also take fully into account the importance of historic houses and explicitly protect their settings. 

Click here to read the HHA's response to the draft NPPF.