MPs to hold inquiry into recommendations of Local Plans Expert Group

MPs on the Communities and Local Government Committee are to hold an inquiry into recommendations made by the Local Plans Expert Group.

In a report published in March, the group highlighted difficulties in assessing and meeting housing needs through local plans as a central issue causing problems, “sometimes to the detriment of other local plan elements”, the committee said.

Committee chair, Labour’s Clive Betts MP, noted: "The Local Plans Expert Group concluded that substantial reform of the local plan-making process was required and made detailed recommendations for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of local plan making.

“The committee will consider these recommendations and look at how DCLG plans to act on them."

There were 47 recommendations in the group’s report. These included a call for the DCLG to update the 2010 study of housing market area (HMA) boundaries to reflect the latest statistical evidence and identify the ‘best fit’ areas based on local authority boundaries.

The group explained: “In view of the potential for HMA boundaries to be ‘gamed’ it is all the more important that guidance reinforces the operation of the duty to co-operate both within and between HMAs.”

It also called for assessments of environmental capacity to become an essential element of the local plan evidence base.

If sufficient homes to meet demand were to be delivered local authorities “should be seeking to meet their objectively assessed needs in the most sustainable and environmentally acceptable way, rather than resisting those objectively assessed needs for growth”, the group said.

In cases where councils intended to refuse development applications, there should be “a robust approach…taken [that] makes clear the expectation that it will be for authorities to demonstrate that the adverse effects of development significantly outweigh the presumption that sufficient land should be allocated to meet objectively”.

Mark Smulian