Understanding the New NPPF: Housing Requirements - The Only Way Is Up
Introducing the new NPPF
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was first introduced in 2012, consolidating various planning policies and sets out the Government's planning policies for development in England. A new and revised NPPF was published in December 2024, with some vitally important changes which will shape development in England in the years to come.
This post is one of a series of blogs by Cedar Planning, seeking to guide you through the complexities and opportunities presented by the new NPPF. This post focusses on changes to the standard method for calculating housing need, and what it might mean for development in your area.
If you want to find out more about the NPPF in general, please visit our explainer blog post here. If you have any thoughts or comments on this post, or suggestions for future posts please get in touch as we would love to hear them.
A New Standard Method for Calculating Housing Needs
The recent updates to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) introduce several significant changes aimed at enhancing housing delivery across England. Notably, the new NPPF reverses some of the changes made by the last Conservative Government in December 2023, which allowed some local authorities to not deliver, or plan for, a sufficient level of new homes in their area.
A number of these changes have been made with the Government's ambition to deliver 1.5 million new homes over this Parliament.
One of the most notable revisions is that local authorities should now use the Government's new standard method for calculating local housing needs to determine how many homes they should plan for. The exact formula for this assessment is set out in Government guidance, but in short an affordability multiplier is applied to the number of existing homes in an area, to provide a new housing requirement. This results in the least affordable areas requiring more new new housing. For more information on the technical detail of the new standard method for identifying housing need across England see our technical blog post here.
The new standard method provides a substantial increase in housing requirements in many areas, and sets an ambitious housing requirement of 372,000 new home each year across England. Some of the largest increases in housing requirement compared to the previous standard method include:
Kensington and Chelsea: 503% increase;
Redcar and Cleveland: 1503% increase;
Burnley: 568% increase;
Tamworth: 262% increase.
Notably, there isn't a single region in England where housing delivery is higher than the levels required under the new standard method.
However, not every Council will see their housing requirements increase, and some of our larger towns and cities will see reduction in housing requirements from the previous standard method - largely as a result of the removal of a 35% uplift for 20 of the largest towns and cities in England and an increased focus on affordability. These two factors have shifted the emphasis for new housing from some urban areas to their rural surroundings.
Practical Implications
Due to the way the planning system works, some areas won't see their housing requirements change for a number of years, whereas others will see a significant increase overnight. This applies to both local plan making and determining planning applications.
For plan making, the revised NPPF provides 'transitional arrangements', which means that if a local authorities emerging local plans is at an advanced stage, they can continue to plan for a lower housing requirement.
For planning applications, local planning authorities need to demonstrate a sufficient supply of housing land against their housing targets, which is known as the five-year housing land supply. This is an important tool, as the lack of a 5-year housing land supply provides opportunities for development that would otherwise be refused.
Whether or not the new standard method applies for a local authorities five-year land supply depends the age of their local plan.
At paragraph 78, the revised NPPF states that where a local planning authority's housing requirement is less than 5 years old, the five-year land supply is to be judged against the housing requirement in their local plan. This means that if a local authority has a recently adopted local plan (i.e. within the last 5 years) that sets a housing requirement, the requirements of the new standard method may not be felt straight away.
If a local authorities housing requirement is more than 5 years old, they will be required to use the new standard method as the baseline for their five-year land supply. This results in some local planning authorities being unable to demonstrate a five-year land supply. In these circumstances, for applications relating to housing, local authorities are required to apply the 'presumption in favour of sustainable development', often resulting in applications being permitted which would have previously been refused.
In a set of blog posts to be posted on our website over the coming weeks, we will be assessing in detail what the new targets mean for each region across England.
Regional Impacts
The new Standard Method for identifying housing requirements provides different across England, however in general areas will see an increase in housing requirements. As mentioned above, some areas will be protected by recently made plans, others will see their housing requirements increase overnight. In future blog posts, we will be delving into a section of the results and potential impacts across England. Be sure to check out of blog and social media pages for more information.