Any National Planning Policy Framework must include authoritative technical guidance once current planning guidance is withdrawn next year, delegates at a stakeholder event run by Buro Happold heard.
Technical director Hugh Mallett told the seminar that withdrawal of brownfield-first policy and the 60% brownfield housing target would hit crucial elements of sustainable development.
He also attacked plans to end current technical guidance altogether.
"Can the NPPF in its current form deliver the Government's stated aims of sustainable development without supporting technical guidance?" he asked.
"Does the NPPF currently provide sufficient clarity? Will it deliver consistent practice (by both developers and planning authorities) and will it deliver certainty of outcome?"
He said the answers are "no" and that a presumption in favour of sustainable development would refer clearly and explicitly to authoritative technical guidance.
"Who will write it and when?" he asked. "How will it be authoritative?"
He said the NPPF must be strengthened to give it the necessary clarity, consistency and certainty.
Anna Rivera, senior associate, planning at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said the Draft NPPF is weighted in favour of economic growth rather than being a balanced third column supporting planning for people and the environment.
"This needs to be rebalanced," she said.
She said only 30% of councils have local development frameworks in place and they will have an enormous task to assimilate the NPPF into their local plans given the tensions in conformity of local plans with the NPPF and neighbourhood plans.
"With the NPPF the default position in favour of sustainable development is ‘yes'," she said.
"The onus will be on local planning authorities to assess and determine any negative impacts of allowing development. In the absence of an up-to-date local plan that sets out how the presumption in favour of development will be applied locally, the evidential threshold required to show ‘significant' and ‘demonstrable' adverse impact on a case by case basis will be challenging."
Planning Potential director Stuart Slatter raised the issue of planning by appeal and the potential for the process stalling thanks to lack of technical guidance.
"This provides challenges in not knowing where best practice is to be found in future," he said.
"Do we retain procedure until new guidance comes into place? Are we going to have to go the extra mile to provide proof in the event of an appeal?"
He argued that, in the current economic turmoil, it is imperative to keep moving forward.
"The danger is that in stalling, we stand still and lose economic momentum," he said.
● Technical guidance includes planning policy statements, planning policy guidance notes, minseral planning statements, circulars and letters to chief planning officers.
BB understands the Government has been discussing the possibility of replacing technical guidance with industry agreed best practice notes, but some believe these would fail to convince planning inspectors and statutory guidance in areas like planning for land contamination is still required.
