Planning policy guidance no. 3: Housing

PPG3 has recently come into force. It provides guidance on widening housing opportunity and choice, maintaining housing supplies and creating sustainable residential environments in order to enable the Government to meet its objective of giving everybody the opportunity of a decent home.

In particular: - local planning authorities are urged to review matters every five years so that they can plan, monitor and manage local housing requirements.

• when bringing forward any new housing, a sequential-type test should be applied with first consideration being given to the availability of previously developed sites. Regard must also be had to the accessibility of the proposed development site to jobs, shops and services, the capacity of existing and potential infrastructure including public transport, water, sewerage, schools etc, the ability to build communities to support new physical and social infrastructure and the physical and environmental constraints on the proposed development site.
• proposals to develop any greenfield land for housing either by itself or as part of a wider but contiguous allocation for housing which affect more than 5 hectares or comprise more than 150 dwellings (regardless of site size) will in due course have to be notified to the Secretary of State where the local planning authority is minded to grant permission. The Secretary of State will be issuing a direction to this effect shortly.
• emphasis is placed on design, the promotion of mixed use development and the availability of public transport in order to create sustainable residential environments.

For further information on this topic, please contact Catherine Montgomery at [email protected] or on (+44) (0)20 7367 2476.