Neil Rowley, director in the planning team and member of Savills Education Group, gives his view on the new draft National Planning Policy Framework and its likely impact on the education sector

Neil Rowley

For real estate professionals, one of the most-anticipated parts of the Labour Party’s manifesto prior to July’s General Election was its planned shake-up of planning laws in order to deliver more housing and to drive UK economic growth.

The property industry has not had to wait long to see the proposals.

Fewer than four weeks since it came to power, on 30 July the new Government unveiled its draft changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

The return of mandatory housing targets to help deliver 1.5 million new homes over the course of this parliament, and the creation of a new ‘grey belt’ land allocation to part facilitate this, have hit the national news headlines.

And there is potentially good news for education providers contained within the proposals, too.

Addressing the shortfall

Sections of the consultation draft NPPF – specifically paragraphs 96 and 97 – that previously promoted the provision of school places have now been expanded to also encourage ‘early years’ and ‘post-16’ education places.

The terms ‘early years’ and ‘post-16’ are not defined in the draft NPPF, but in our opinion they cover most forms of nurseries, early years care, special educational needs (SEN), and further and higher education establishments.

These proposals are partly to help meet the new Government’s manifesto commitment to open an additional 3,000 nurseries offering 100,000 childcare places to address a massive shortfall in capacity across England and Wales.

Not only does it think this will deliver social benefits to children, but will allow more parents – especially women – to be more active in the workforce, helping UK economic growth.

Tipping the balance

If the draft changes are approved, local authorities will need to give ‘great weight to the need to create, expand, or alter early years, schools and post-16 facilities.’

This is an important new emphasis because most planning decisions are made ‘on balance,’ subject to a range of competing benefits and harms of the proposals.

And the requirement for ‘great weight’ to be afforded to the provision of education facilities may tip that balance in favour of approval.

Local authorities will also be told to take a proactive, positive, and collaborative approach to ensuring there is a sufficient choice of early years, school, and post-16 places across their jurisdictions for parents and students, although given the current funding crisis in local government, many authorities will be hoping that further funding exists to support this.

A balancing act

If you are working on a planning proposal for new education provision, it is therefore worth discussing these potential changes with your consultant team.

It will be important to draw the attention of local planning authorities to the proposed changes so they are given appropriate weight in the planning balance.

The changes are out for consultation until 24 September, so it would also be sensible for education providers in favour of the revisions to support them via a submission on the gov.uk website.