Commentary Part 6: Planning Chapter 3: Neighbourhood Planning Schedule 9 Part 2: Neighbourhood development plans
278.Part 2 of Schedule 9 amends the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to empower parish councils and neighbourhood forums to propose neighbourhood development plans. Unlike neighbourhood development orders, these do not give planning permissions but instead set out policies in relation to the development and use of land in all or part of a defined neighbourhood area (see new section 38A(2)).
279.The amendments to section 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 made by paragraph 6 of Schedule 9 mean that neighbourhood development plans, once they are made, will become part of the development plan for an area. Consequently, by virtue of section 38(6) of that Act certain decisions will need to be made in accordance with neighbourhood development plans unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Such decisions include decisions on applications for the grant of planning permission and appeals against the refusal of such applications.
280.New section 38A (inserted by paragraph 7 of Schedule 9) requires local planning authorities to make a neighbourhood development plan if there is a referendum vote in favour of the order in each applicable referendum under Schedule 4B. As with neighbourhood development orders, there are narrow circumstances in which a local planning authority may refuse here – for example, where the authority considers that making the plan would be incompatible with any EU obligation. As with neighbourhood development orders, new section 38A(5) empowers, but does not require, the local planning authority to make a neighbourhood development plan if there is a referendum vote in favour of the plan in one of the applicable referendums (but not the other) held in a business neighbourhood area designated under new section 61H (where there are two applicable referendums – one of residents and one of non-domestic rate payers).
281.New section 38B deals with the form and contents of neighbourhood development plans, requiring, for example, that they must specify the period for which they are to have effect and that they cannot relate to the classes of excluded development set out in new section 61K of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 – such as development falling within Annex 1 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (Council Directive 85/337/EEC). This section also specifies that only one neighbourhood development plan may be made for each neighbourhood area. A regulation-making power is provided (new section 38B(4)) which enables provision to be made, for example, on whether any maps need to be incorporated into a plan to show the extent of a policy and to what scale those maps should be.
282.New section 38C applies new provisions which are to be inserted into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 on neighbourhood development orders to neighbourhood development plans (as if they were orders but with the necessary modification). Therefore, the provisions on revocation and modification of orders in new section 61M apply in relation to plans (though this does not need to be done by order – see new section 38C(3)), as do those on legal challenges by judicial review (new section 61N). Similarly, because of new section 38C(5) the provision in Schedule 10 (described below) will not only apply in relation to the making of neighbourhood development orders, but plans as well.