NPF4 - How have things changed? Part 2

The speaker discusses several policies in the NPF4 (National Planning Framework 4) and the challenges they present. Policy 1 focuses on tackling climate and nature crises, with an emphasis on zero carbon and nature-positive places. Policy 2 delves into climate change mitigation and adaptation, including reducing emissions and increasing resilience. Policy 3 aims to protect and enhance biodiversity, with development proposals required to contribute to biodiversity enhancement. The housing policy, Policy 16, aims to deliver the right housing in the right place, emphasizing a plan-led and sustainable approach. Lastly, Policy 11E provides strong support for renewable energy, except for wind farms in national parks and scenic areas. The speaker also mentions some recent decisions under MPF4, including wind farm and housing appeals. The interpretation and application of MPF4 are still being developed, and the speaker suggests the need for further guidance on assessing cumulative impacts and So welcome back, everyone. We're going to take a quick look next at a few of the policies to summarise some of the changes in NPF4 and perhaps some of the challenges ahead. The first policy is about tackling the climate and nature crises. It's intended to promote zero carbon and nature-positive places. It says that significant weight will be given to both the global climate and nature crises. As Claire mentioned, it's important that they're and also the fact that it says significant weight should be crucial. It also emphasises that it applies to all development proposals, which suggests that there is potential for it to be referred to in responses to all planning applications. It's a really strong direction to decision makers and those creating LDPs, but it's important that we ensure that it's being considered every decision. I expect that we're going to need to push this policy all the time. This is the only planning framework that we're going to have for the next decade, which is pretty crucial for climate and nature. So, yes, not just for a while there's a COP going on. Policy 2 gives a bit more detail about the climate side, both mitigation and adaptation. It's intended to support emissions reduction and increased resilience to climate change. It's quite nuanced in some ways, talking about siting and design to minimise life-cycle emissions. The implications of that will probably vary on the development being considered and the location in question. I suspect further guidance about how to consider life-cycle emissions in different development types is probably going to be needed, and how to interpret as far as possible will probably change over time. We've already seen this policy cited in a few local authority decisions where they have refused the permission, partly based on the proposed location being likely to encourage considerable private vehicle traffic and therefore increased emissions. It also gives good support to the retrofit of existing buildings. Policy 3 is about biodiversity. The intent here is to protect biodiversity, reverse biodiversity loss. I saw in the chat someone's already mentioned how we've lost so much biodiversity in Scotland already, so this policy is very much aimed at reversing that. The idea is that it will deliver positive effects from development. LDPs are similarly instructed to protect, conserve, restore and enhance biodiversity in line with the mitigation hierarchy—that's a new introduction—and to create nature networks across their areas. Under policy 3, development proposals must contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity. For national or major developments, that requirement is spelled out a bit more in that there needs to be a demonstrably better state than without intervention for the proposal to be supported. However, as Clare Adamson has already mentioned, how will we implement that? The policy says that best practice assessment methods should be used, and it gives a list of criteria for major developments that need to be met. They range from understanding the site, using nature-based solutions where possible, to management arrangements for long-term retention of benefits and then monitoring them. There is still a lot of on-going work intended to support that policy and set out what best practice is. We are far from being there at the moment. NatureScot has published some guidance. Just last week, as Clare mentioned, the Scottish Government published planning guidance on biodiversity in draft form. The Scottish Government have described it as a living document and are asking for feedback on it. There is an opportunity for anyone to do that. If you want to comment on it or feel that there are developments going on that are ignoring it, Barry is hopefully putting the links in the chat. There is also on-going work on a biodiversity metric to help with assessing enhancement. There will be one designed for Scotland, or at least an amendment to the one that has been produced for England to reflect Scotland's habitats. The new Scottish biodiversity strategy and the forthcoming biodiversity targets will also be relevant when they come in. It feels like a major change is the emphasis on enhancement, not just protection. The current difficulty is how we measure this and how we know things will be better. As we have found out today, we cannot just leave it to planners, developers and even councillors. There is a real role for interested people in the community to help with this. The next policy that I want to mention is housing. It is called quality homes policy 16. The Scottish Government's intention seems to be for it to be a simpler policy that is more focused on delivering the right housing in the right place and to be more plan-led and sustainable. The intention is for housing post-MPF to be more plan-led. There is an instruction for local authorities to have a housing land pipeline, which is a new phrase, and that is to be made up of allocated land for housing delivery phased over 10 years. That will be set out in the LDP delivery programme. The housing policy no longer has the rule where the five-year effective housing land requirement and the failure of local authorities to meet that target could potentially trigger releases of unallocated land for speculative developments at planning appeals. There are still circumstances where there can still be releases of non-allocated land for new housing, but they are much more specific. They are set out in policy 16S. The main thrust of this is that there could be further releases of non-allocated land if the allocated housing land in the LDP is being built out faster than expected. It is almost the opposite of what happened before and, hopefully, more of a plan-led system rather than planning by appeal. However, some of you know that there are still quite a number of live appeals by volume house builders over proposed developments on non-allocated sites. A lot of those appeals have been put on hold or fisted because of a challenge by a developer at the Court of Session over how housing policy in MPF4 works. The results of that are expected in the new year and we will find out how MPF4 housing policy is being interpreted then. The last policy that I am going to mention now is policy 11E. It gives really strong support to all forms of renewables except for wind farms in national parks and national scenic areas. Policy 11E gives a long list of impacts that have to be addressed and mitigated. They include communities, landscape, public access, aviation, telecommunications and so on, including the cumulative impacts of all of those. It also says that, in considering those impacts, significant weight will be placed on the contribution of the proposal to renewable energy generation targets and on greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. There is really strong support for renewables. I wonder whether, given the huge targets for renewables and the pace of change of technology, there needs to be a bit of an update to guidance about cumulative impacts and how they are assessed. However, that is for the future at the moment. We want to give a quick flavour of a few decisions since MPF4 was adopted. Interpretational bits are developing all the time, so this is just a few examples. A couple of renewables appeals have differing results. Sheppard's rig, the wind farm proposal in Dumfries and Galloway, and pre-MPF4, there was a public inquiry, as the local authority had objected to it. The report's report in April 2022 was against allowing it, mainly due to the significant adverse landscape and visual impacts. However, because a decision had not been reached before the publication of the revised draft of MPF4, Scottish ministers then asked for the inquiry to be reopened to look at the implications of MPF4. A similar thing has happened with some of the housing appeals. The resulting supplementary report had a different finding. It recommended that the consent be granted. The reporters then concluded that the proposed development now had very strong support in principle, both from national energy policy and planning policy. Its benefits, in particular its contribution to renewable energy targets, now clearly outweighed its significant landscape and visual effects. Ministers granted consent on that basis. MPF4 is seen as giving more support to meeting renewables targets, definitely. I do also recognise that behind that, Scottish Government energy policy and targets have also been changing much higher. MPF4 is dealing with a changed context, too. However, it's not to say that all wind farms and renewables will get permitted under the new regime. In June this year, Scottish ministers issued a decision following a public inquiry into renewable energy development in Argyll and Bute. Consent was refused in that case, mainly due to the impact of the proposal on the setting of a scheduled monument—not even the fabric, just the setting. That related to MPF4 policy 7, which is historic assets and places. It is probably another reminder that MPF4 needs to be read as a whole. Energy decisions are not going to be just made on the energy policy. You need to look at the whole thing. I have already mentioned the case of Mossend. Scottish ministers called in the appeal for housing in West Lothian on a greenfield site. They called it in for their decision earlier in the year, because it was raising issues about how policy 16F on housing land operated. The developers made arguments at appeal about various housing figures in West Lothian that were along very similar lines to those in pre-MPF4 cases. In effect, they were saying that policy 16 could not operate fully because a new MPF4-compatible LDP was not yet in place. Ministers took the decision and knocked back the appeal, but the developers then took the Scottish ministers to court. We are waiting to see what happens. Biodiversity—cool links. This is about proposed plans to build a golf course on one of Scotland's last undeveloped dune systems. Planning officers from Highland Council recommended that the plans be refused. Their report's main conclusion was that the proposal cannot comply with MPF4's policy requirement to deliver biodiversity enhancement due to overall adverse impacts on the protected areas. Some of the protected areas are protected nationally and internationally. NatureScot also objected to this. However, just today, the Highland Council's planning committee approved the plans to go forward. This comes three years after there was an extensive public inquiry and refusal of a very similar scheme. There does not seem to be good news for nature or access to nature, but we will have to wait and see whether the Scottish Government calls the decision in, which it could, because of NatureScot's objection. We might be able to put information about that case and how people can encourage ministers to call it in, if they feel that they should, in the chat. Barry might have done that, too. I will quickly hand back to Clare Adamson. Clare Adamson is in the chat. If anyone wants to click the link and join the RSPB e-action to ask the Scottish ministers to call it in and have a think about the decision again, that is something that you can do as well. MPF4, as I said, was adopted in February. We are now in what the Scottish Government called a delivery phase of MPF4 and are making sure that it is put into practice. Part of that includes making sure that planners and decision makers understand how to implement the policies. That is particularly important with the biodiversity policies, as they are quite new, especially with the enhancement element. It is acknowledged that planners lack the expertise in nature and ecology, and local authorities are so strapped for resources that they do not always have ecological teams and expertise available to help. That is a problem. As Nicky was saying, there is no single accepted methodology for calculating or measuring biodiversity enhancement, so how do we know whether or not nature is better off? Some guidance was produced last week on how to implement policy 3 on the biodiversity enhancement aspect. It states that developers should apply a mitigation hierarchy, which means preventing impacts from happening first and then considering mitigation. They should be considering biodiversity from the outset. There is still a lot of detail to add to that guidance. As Nicky said, it is still a living document, so if you have expertise in biodiversity monitoring and measuring, you should get in touch with the chief planner on that. We have spoken to the chief planner and the new planning improvement champion about how we monitor these policies, particularly housing and biodiversity policies. The Government said that it was keeping its ear to the ground, which is possibly not the most convincing of monitoring policies, but the improvement officer, Craig McLaren, is doing some consultation around it. If you think back to that slide that I put about the statutory outcomes and the fact that biodiversity and climate change are statutory outcomes, as well as providing housing, the Government previously very much focused its monitoring and planning performance frameworks around speed and efficiency—how quickly they were processing planning applications—rather than on what it was delivering and whether it was delivering those outcomes. That is one of the things that the planning improvement champion is trying to explore. How do you measure that? The more such things get measured, the more it is obvious where it is not achieving. I think that the monitoring phase is really important. If planners know that they are being watched and that they are having to write reports about it, it is really important to make sure that they achieve those things. Communities are often the ones who raise the concerns about when planning conditions are being stuck to or whatever. This is a real need and an opportunity to get communities involved. We have been pushing that with the Government and with Craig, as well. We are talking about communities doing a more citizen science approach so that you can be monitoring developments. You are there on the ground. You can see whether they are actually delivering for nature or not. We are asking to help us monitor in three different ways. The first is to give us examples, just like Nicky did with the different examples of planning applications that are going through and whether they are working for biodiversity or not. If you can do that, please tick that part of the monitoring form that Barry has put in the chat. The second thing that we want is a bit more of a deep dive into a desk-based study, looking at a number of planning decisions in your local authority planning portals, and a bit of a deep dive to bolster some of the monitoring that the RSPB is doing. That might need a little bit of training and help on how to do that, but we can provide that if you tell us if you are interested. We are trying to assess how much people will help us with that. The final thing is helping us to go out monitoring biodiversity on housing development sites as they are being constructed and afterwards. That has already been done by NatureScot. They have been looking at it prior to NPF4, but they are not actually doing it. They have only done it on a small number of sites. We think we could broaden that out and make it a much more citizen science approach. I think it would be something that people might quite enjoy, counting how many trees have actually made it and whether the subs ponds are in the right place and so on and so forth. That is another thing that you could do. Please let us know whether you are interested in helping us to monitor NPF4 in the future. There is a lot that people can do. One of the indirect causes of biodiversity decline is our distance from nature and our lack of appreciation for it. That is what the state of nature report says. One way of getting better acquainted with nature is to get excited about how we can enhance these developments. There are lots of courses available. We can send you information about them if you show an interest and indicate an interest. There are bursaries available as well. There are lots of databases and tools that can help you find out what biodiversity there is in your area already. We can send you links to these if you fill in your monitoring forms.