Victoria Hills MRTPI FICE is Chief Executive at the RTPI
You may already be aware of the crucial work underway in Westminster to reform the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – the guiding policies that shape how planning operates across England.
This ambitious rewrite will affect not only the allocation of housing but also the placement of infrastructure, hospitals, schools, and town centres. How well these elements are integrated will be integral for communities across England, shaping the way we live, work, and travel.
The government, which has placed housing delivery at the heart of its agenda for the next parliamentary term, has announced a target of 1.5 million new homes. While the planning system may be essential to achieving this goal, it is also left with issues that the current revision must address if it is to prove effective.
Research from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), in collaboration with LandTech, highlights the limitations of the past decade under the NPPF. It found that the previous framework, intended to encourage sustainable development, has fallen short of that goal.
The location of new homes has continued to foster car dependency, with no meaningful improvement in access to key services by walking, cycling, or using trains and buses. While the NPPF may have aimed to shape sustainable development, in practice, it did little to incentivise building homes in locations conducive to alternative forms of transport.
The RTPI’s The Location of Development 4 report, which aimed to understand how well the NPPF achieved its intended goals, underscores this misalignment. It found that accessibility from newly approved housing to essential services did not improve between 2012 and 2021. In much of England, housing developments continued to lock residents into car dependency, with journey times to shops, schools, hospitals and GPs largely unchanged.
The divide between urban and rural access is particularly clear. While new homes in London have the shortest journey times to key amenities, rural areas continue to suffer from notably poorer access.
As the government looks to draft the next NPPF, these policy underperformances must be addressed. The new framework will need to prioritise development in locations that genuinely reduce car reliance, close regional accessibility gaps, and foster healthy, sustainable communities.
Policymakers must seize this opportunity to learn from the failures of the past decade. With a well-conceived NPPF, they can set a more sustainable course for England’s housing future.
