3rd February 2025
Government moves to increase Cornwall’s house-building target
LABOUR’s new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which came into force at the end of the year, sets out revised guidance and policies for planning across England.
A fresh mandatory standard housing methodology was published at the same time and is the policy that Cornwall Council must now use to understand how many new homes should be built each year in the county.
It means that Cornwall’s new housing requirement will be 4,421 a year, instead of the 2,707 that had been planned for under the current Local Plan.
Said a Planning spokesperson: “Where a Local Plan is more than five years old (our Cornwall Local Plan is now eight years old), we must be able to show that the plan can meet the new housing requirement of 4,421 homes per year for it to remain ‘up to date’.
“We have concluded that this is not currently possible and on that basis some of our policies in the Local Plan will be considered ‘out of date’ for decision making. However, where our policies remain consistent with the NPPF they can continue to be used for decision making. This is true of the majority of our policies across the Local Plan and Neighbourhood Plans.”
Cornwall’s Planners have written a briefing note for Neighbourhood Planning Groups and it can be viewed at: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/jlzi05rx/briefing-note-for-ndp-groups-nppf.pdf