National Planning Reform:
What It Means for Cambridge
The government is making significant changes to way that development is planned in England. This includes changes to who does the planning, the way in which planning decisions are made and the criteria by which planning applications are approved or refused.
Cambridge Past, Present & Future (CPPF), and many other organisations, are deeply concerned that in their rush to speed up development, some of the governments’ proposed changes will result in worse, less environmentally sustainable developments that are imposed on increasingly powerless local communities.
The government is asking for responses to its planned changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) with a deadline of 10 March.
What is the government proposing?
At the moment, local councils plan development in their area by creating a Local Plan, this sets out the amount of development that needs to be planned for, identifies locations for that development and sets the policies and standards that development must achieve if it is to be approved.
The government is proposing that in future a new Strategic Development Strategy will be created by the Mayor for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough and this will determine the amount of development and broadly where it will go, including in the Green Belt.
The government is proposing to speed up the process of creating Local Plans and also for the government to set the standards for development in a national ‘one size fits all’ approach. This would mean that local policy innovations on climate change, water scarcity and biodiversity, driven by local authorities, will no longer be possible if this framework is adopted unamended.
The government is also proposing that any development close to a railway station (and possibly other stations, such as busway stops) should be approved, even if it isn’t in the Local Plan.
The government is proposing to make it easier the build on the Green Belt, and for Cambridge to merge with its villages.
That is why it is so important that communities respond to the consultation.
We strongly encourage you to take part in the consultation and/or write to your local MP:
Below we identify some of the contentious proposals and the implications for you and greater Cambridge. These can help inform your response to the consultation or your MP. More details about how to respond are provided at the end of this article
Page 6 of the draft NPPF. Q6 in the online survey.
PM1: Spatial Development Strategies
The Government is proposing to move away from purely local decision-making and reintroducing strategic planning at a much larger scale. New ‘Spatial Development Strategies’ will be produced by the Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough. This new ‘top-tier’ plan will set out the big-picture vision for the entire region—specifically identifying where the largest housing developments should go, including in the Green Belt.
Whilst CPPF supports a more strategic approach to planning we don’t agree with that Spatial Development Strategies (SDS) should be getting down to the detail of planning development in the Cambridge Green Belt. There are two reasons why:
Firstly because the SDS is at a high level and covering a large geographical area, the majority of people won’t know what is being planned. Evidence from other Mayoral initiatives is that they are poorly communicated and poorly understood by local people. If the government insists on pushing this through then it must mandate a simplified, highly visible communication strategy for SDS, with the burden on the Mayor to demonstrate meaningful, accessible engagement.
Secondly, because we believe that local decisions should be made locally, and any decision to build on the Cambridge Green Belt should be made locally by the people of greater Cambridge and those it has elected to represent them.
Page 10 of the Draft NPPF. Question 12 in the online survey.
PM7: Initiating plan making for local plans
The proposal is that Local Plans should be completed in 2.5 years, compared to around 5 years at present. Other changes that the government has already made to the process for creating Local Plans means that local communities are expected to engage early in the process. CPPF is concerned that a combination of these two changes means that unless communities are incredibly smart and on the front foot at the very beginning, they will find it difficult to influence plans for their area.
This democratic deficit is further exacerbated by a change that the government has already made, which means that more planning decisions will be made by unelected planning officers (who may not even live locally) than by the politicians that were locally elected by communities.
CPPF will be urging the Government to recognise that community engagement is not an obstacle to be streamlined and undermined. On the contrary, it is a vital mechanism that helps local authorities identify the most appropriate land and shape higher-quality development. Removing community input is likely to result in poorer-quality, contentious development that lacks local consent.
Page 14 of the Draft NPPF. Question 18 in the online survey.
PM13: Setting standards
The government is proposing that standards for development should largely be based on national standards, rather than standards set locally, a ‘one-size fits all’ approach.
CPPF strongly objects to the restriction preventing local authorities from setting higher environmental standards than those mandated nationally. In high-growth, environmentally sensitive areas like Greater Cambridge—which are already meeting housing and economic targets—there is no justification for forcing the acceptance of lower ‘fallback’ standards.
It is illogical to impose a policy that makes developments ‘worse and not better’ simply to achieve national uniformity. The proposed National Development Management Policies (NDMP) threaten to render redundant the pioneering work of local councils in brokering exceptional standards for climate change, water scarcity and biodiversity. We argue that national standards must act as a minimum ‘floor’ rather than a ‘ceiling.’ Local authorities should retain the autonomy to require higher standards where there is local evidence of environmental necessity and where such standards do not demonstrably prevent the delivery of required housing and development.
Page 24 of the draft NPPF. Question 40 in the online survey.
S5, 1h: Principle of Development Outside Settlements: Rail Stations
The government is proposing that development within walking distance of a rail station should be approved, if it meets certain criteria. CPPF strongly objects that this national presumption should not override the local plan. Local authorities will have considered and dismissed development near specific rail stations for legitimate reasons, such as landscape or heritage impact, or lack of social infrastructure. A national ‘one-size-fits-all’ mandate for developing near to stations ignores these vital local constraints. We believe this is a decision that is best made locally, not one determined by Westminster.
Page 52 of the draft NPPF. Question 132 in the online survey.
GB2 Assessing Existing Green Belt Land
The government is proposing to reinforce the category of Green Belt called ‘Grey Belt’. Grey Belt is land in the Green Belt that is deemed previously developed or of low environmental value and it has a lower level of protection than Green Belt. If a site is considered Grey Belt, there will be a new presumption in favour of building on it.
Policy GB2 shifts the focus to the visual quality of the land. This shift is backed by a new, highly technical assessment process known as Appendix E. This requires councils to assess small individual parcels of land rather than looking at the landscape as a whole. Furthermore, the new rules focus only on the separation between towns, ignoring the essential gaps that keep villages from merging into the city.
CPPF strongly objects to the proposed ‘Grey Belt’ designations and the revised assessment criteria in Appendix E. We find the shift toward a quality-based assessment fundamentally flawed; the primary purpose of Green Belt is to prevent urban sprawl and maintain settlement separation, regardless of the land’s perceived aesthetic or agricultural quality.
The prescriptive focus on very small parcels of land will result in a fragmented, incremental loss of protection. This ‘nibbling’ effect fails to account for the cumulative impact on the historic setting of cities like Cambridge. Furthermore, we face a downward spiral logic: once the current ‘poorest quality’ land is developed, the next tier is reclassified as the ‘new’ poorest quality.
We also explicitly object to Appendix E’s focus on the separation between towns while excluding villages. In a landscape like Greater Cambridge, the separation between the city and its ‘necklace’ villages is the defining feature of the great Cambridge’s character. If national policy does not protect the gaps between towns and villages, these distinct identities will be lost through inevitable coalescence.
If this policy is introduced unamended, it will be to the detriment of Cambridge’s countryside, historic villages and the setting of the historic city. It is hard to understand how this will make Cambridge a more attractive place for people to live, study, work and invest in.
Page 87 of the Draft NPPF. Question 179 in the online survey.
N1: Identifying environmental opportunities and safeguards
The government proposes to limit the ability of local authorities to set Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements above the 10% statutory minimum. In greater Cambridge, our local authorities have set a higher standard of 20%. If the governments changes are adopted it would halve the amount of biodiversity benefit from new developments.
CPPF strongly disagrees with the proposal to limit the ability of local authorities to set Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements above the 10% statutory minimum. In ecologically denuded areas like Greater Cambridge, local authorities must retain the autonomy to set higher standards (such as 20% BNG) to meet local nature recovery targets. National policy should provide a ‘floor,’ not a ‘ceiling.’
Page105 of the Draft NPPF. Question 145 in the online survey.
Definition of Grey Belt. Annex B: Glossary: Guidance and Glossary
Under the current NPPF, sensitive environmental and heritage sites are excluded from the definition of Grey Belt land. Because these sensitive places are already protected by other strong laws, the government is proposing that Grey Belt land can now include these sensitive places. However, once a site is labelled as Grey Belt, it enters a ‘presumption in favour of development,’ making it much harder for the community to protect it based on its environmental or historic importance.
CPPF strongly objects that the proposed definition of Grey Belt no longer specifically excludes sensitive designations.
By ‘pre-classifying’ these areas as Grey Belt, the policy bypasses the essential first step of planning: a site-specific impact assessment. We must fully understand the environmental and heritage value of a site before inviting development interest. Placing these assets in the Grey Belt ‘shop window’ will inevitably lead to speculative applications that undermine the long-term protection of Cambridge’s historic setting and biodiversity. We argue that any land containing Footnote 7 assets should be explicitly excluded from the Grey Belt definition to maintain the integrity of our most valued landscapes.
How to give your response by 10 March 2026:
Visit https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/national-planning-policy-framework-proposed-reforms-and-other-changes-to-the-planning-system for background information and to read the documents.
Email your response to: PlanningPolicyConsultation@communities.gov.uk
Complete the online survey here: https://consult.communities.gov.uk/planning/proposed-reforms-to-the-national-planning-policy-f/
Contact your MP. If you agree with what CPPF is saying, then you could let your MP know that (CPPF will be expressing our concerns to them both and encouraging them to take these up with the Minister and others in government).
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