This month's Fixing the Foundations 'productivity plan' commits the government to 'an urban planning revolution on brownfield sites'.

Ministers have already pledged to create a register of brownfield land suitable for housing, and the plan says there will be legislation to grant automatic planning permission on registered sites. It notes that this will give England a "zonal" planning system.

The government has already asked local authorities to bring forward local development orders (LDOs) on brownfield sites, in its Building More Homes on Brownfield Land consultation in January. That proposal was always fraught with difficulties, not least over the need for scarce local authority planning resources to be diverted into preparing and promoting LDOs and likely disagreement about what can properly be classed as brownfield. However, the proposed zoning system appears to go further than LDOs, offering a permitted development regime on identified sites. In principle this looks easy, but it raises some practical questions.

The rights will only apply to registered brownfield land "suitable for housing". Before any brownfield site can be registered, it will need to be identified as suitable, either by the landowner or the local planning authority. This raises some questions about the level of analysis that will be required before a site can be entered on the register.

Since entry on the register will effectively grant consent, there will need to be scrutiny to ensure that no environmental assessment is required. In some places, the scope for potential development of brownfield sites will require an assessment of the cumulative impacts of schemes. There may be an argument that the compilation of a register itself requires a strategic environmental assessment.

The productivity plan notes that approval will be automatic "subject to approval of a limited number of technical details". This raises obvious questions about the extent of those technical details and whether they will be common across all sites. If they are, then the approval process may not be much shorter than a formal planning application. But if they are bespoke for each site, the assessment for entry on the register will need to be rigorous. In any case, a key question is whether there will be any control over design. The National Planning Policy Framework is very firm about the importance of design. Will that be reflected in the zonal system, and if so, how?

Most permitted development rights are subject to conditions. One concern is whether sites will be required to make contributions towards infrastructure needs, and if so how. Importantly, will there also be a requirement to provide affordable housing? If there is, will that be dealt with by way of a condition? And at what level, and with what mix of tenures? At what point will viability be assessed in deciding on infrastructure and viability requirements?

The need for an "urban planning revolution" is clear, but whether a zonal system for brownfield land is a sensible part of that revolution is uncertain. In a plan-led world, it might simply be better to remind planning authorities – although they already know this – that they should be looking for the best possible use of their brownfield sites and making appropriate allocations.

This article was published online at www.planningresource.co.uk, July 24, 2015.

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