The significance of the NPPF was as much the fact that it put together in one place all of central government’s planning policies, giving local planning authorities (and more importantly planning inspectors dealing with appeals) a single set of rules to apply in decision making. It is not perfect, but some of those imperfections stem from the fact that voters in England and Wales are wedded to concepts such as the Green Belt which (in this author’s view) add to the problems of housing delivery in an environmentally sustainable manner.
