The Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), the UK’s lead professional body for built and historic environment conservation specialists, has welcomed confirmation that critical guides underpinning England’s recently withdrawn Planning Policy Statements (PPSs) remain a material consideration in planning.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Greg Clark has confirmed that, although the PPSs were withdrawn when the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) came into operation recently, their companion guides will remain in force whilst any new guidance is being developed. The guidance includes the ‘Practice Guide’ for PPS 5, Planning for the Historic Environment.
The statement by Clark came in a response to a written parliamentary question from Chris Heaton-Harris MP on the 17th May. In his response the Secretary of State says that guidance where relevant can still be used. As many of the NPPF policies are broadly similar to those in PPS 5, the practice guide remains a relevant and material tool for decision making in the management of the built and historic environment.
Hansard records:
Chris Heaton-Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether the annexes and companion guides to planning policies revoked by the National Planning Policy Framework are also revoked.
Greg Clark: The National Planning Policy Framework includes a list of the 44 policy documents which it replaces, and which have now been revoked. Annexes to the policy documents listed have also been revoked.
This Government inherited in addition some 6,000 pages of underpinning planning guidance, and is now embarking on a new exercise to consider what underpinning guidance continues to be needed, involving practitioners and other interested parties.
As recommended by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, current underpinning guidance remains in place pending the outcome of this exercise, and where relevant can still be used. This includes companion guides, and also Annex E to the previously revoked Planning Policy Guidance note 7 which was retained as a freestanding guidance document (on permitted development rights for agriculture and forestry) when Planning Policy Statement 7 was introduced in 2004.
For an English Heritage statement the guidance and other support see links at: LINK
For the Hansard report see: LINK
