The introduction of Supplementary Plans (SPs) is part of an over-arching ambition to simplify, speed up and create more certainty in the plan making system, improve consultation and engagement in the formulation of planning policy, and streamline the number of information sources for those making planning applications.These FAQs bring together our thoughts and advice on the most immediate challenges facing planning authorities.
Planning Advisory Service (PAS) has created these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to support the government’s consultation process. These FAQs have been produced by PAS and do not represent the view of government or constitute legal/policy advice, nor do they represent official guidance.
These FAQs have been produced based on PAS’s interpretation of Govt. consultation documents and reflect questions asked during two virtual events held in November 2023.
About Supplementary Plans
The introduction of Supplementary Plans (SPs) is part of an over-arching ambition to simplify, speed up and create more certainty in the plan making system, improve consultation and engagement in the formulation of planning policy, and streamline the number of information sources for those making planning applications.
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) 2023 provides for the creation of new planning policy documents called Supplementary Plans (SPs). The intention is (as set out in the Government’s consultation) that SPs replace Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) and Area Action Plans (AAPs) once the regulations are in place for the reformed plan-making system sometime later in 2024. That said, SPs will be different to SPDs in relation to what content they can cover.
Supplementary Plans (SPs) are being introduced to enable planning authorities to react and respond quickly and positively to unanticipated changes in their area without the need to revise or update the whole local plan. SPs will have the same weight as a local plan, giving communities and applicants more certainty about the plans that applications are determined in accordance with. They will also be subject to consultation and independent examination.
Government published a consultation on plan-making reforms in July 2023. Chapter 11, paragraph 175 says: Supplementary Plans (SPs) are not intended to be used routinely; planning authorities should prioritise including all policies in their local plan or minerals and waste plan, leaving supplementary plans only for exceptional or unforeseen circumstances that need resolving between plans.
Supplementary Plans (SPs) may only be used only on a site-specific basis e.g. to support a new development opportunity, or to build on existing policies in the development plan e.g. to set out a masterplan or design code for a site allocated in a local plan.
The only exception to this is that an SP may be used to set out Authority-Wide Design Codes (as required by the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act).
Any policy or guidance that applies across the whole of the Local Planning Authority Area should go into the Local Plan.
Producing a comprehensive list of scenarios would be difficult, but the following may be used as a ‘rule of thumb.’ Supplementary Plans (SPs) can be prepared for:
(a) local plan policies in relation to the amount, type and location of, or timetable for, development at a specific site in the LPA area or at two or more specific sites in the Local Planning Authority (LPA) area which the authority considers to be nearby to each other;
(b) other local plan policies relating to the use or development of land that relate to the particular characteristics or circumstances of a specific site in the LPA’s area or two or more specific sites in their area which the authority consider to be nearby to each other;
(c) details of any infrastructure requirements, or requirements for affordable housing under (a) or (b) above;
(d) requirements with respect to design that relate to development, or development of a particular description, throughout the LPA’s area, in any part of their area or at one or more specific sites in their area.
Using an SP for design is the only instance where the SP can cover policy and guidance covering the whole of the LPA area.
It has not been defined yet. Government published a consultation on plan-making reforms in July 2023. The consultation is now closed but Question 33 specifically asked for views on what factors would indicate whether two or more sites are ‘nearby’ to each other?
The consultation stated that Supplementary Plans (SPs) are limited geographically to matters relating to a specific site or two or more nearby sites…… that they must be site specific or relate to two or more sites which an authority considers nearby to each other.
‘Nearby’ could potentially mean next to each other or related in some way within an LPA’s boundaries. The intention is not to prevent an SP covering more than one site or area where it makes sense, but to prevent wide areas of the local plan being arbitrarily covered by an SP – in which case the policy and requirements should go into the Local Plan.
An interesting thing that may come out of the consultation response will be how separate sites that are related by a topic e.g. nature recovery or HMOs will be considered, as well as separate but geographically clustered sites like ‘city centre’ sites, or smaller sites within a neighbourhood.
It is not necessary for Supplementary Plans (SPs) to have a hook into the Local Plan. This helps LPAs to react quickly to a change in circumstance and create policy and guidance for an opportunity or unexpected circumstances. There may of course be a ‘hook’ into the Local Plan e.g. an SP that is a masterplan for an allocated site.
Supplementary Plans (SPs) can be created as soon as Schedule 7 of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 is enacted, and the regulations are in place governing the use and production of Supplementary Plans. You do not need to wait to have a Local Plan adopted in the new system to create a Supplementary Plan.
Supplementary Plans (SPs) are being introduced to enable planning authorities to react and respond quickly and positively to unanticipated changes in their area without the need to revise or update the whole local plan. SPs will have the same weight as a local plan, giving communities and applicants more certainty about the plans that applications are determined in accordance with. They will also be subject to consultation and independent examination.
Replacing Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs)
The plan making reforms once brought in to force will remove the legal powers that enable the preparation of Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs). Government expects Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to review the content of all existing SPDs. LPAs should review their SPDs and decide whether the information they contain should go into the local plan or whether it can become ‘Local Guidance.’ PAS is considering how it might support LPAs to do this in the early days of SPs being introduced.
Slide 5 of the DLUHC presentation used at our November 2023 'Supplementary Plans further consultation events' includes a useful diagram to help explain this (see our 'Planning Making Reform' pages to access the presentation).
SPDs are varied and contain useful information and technical guidance e.g. on the implementation of various policies. While guidance (for what former SPD info should go into the local plan and what should not) may be useful, fixed rules will be difficult to produce to cover every eventuality. There is an overall aspiration for Local Plans to become shorter and simpler, so each LPA will need to make a judgement on how much of the SPD needs to go into the plan and how much/what type can sit outside the plan as ‘Local Guidance.’
Costs for bringing forward development can and will change. This is usually taken account of when testing whole plan viability by ensuring that there is a sufficient buffer that allows development of the type set out in thy local plan to still come forward. The government’s planning practice guidance is clear that formulaic approaches to planning obligations should not be included in SPDs and are a matter for the local plan. With proposals to streamline plan-making and encourage more frequent update of local plans there is no reason these matters cannot be accounted for in the local plan. Notwithstanding, the decision-making process cannot be fettered, and decision-makers will have an opportunity to account for any significant changes and evidence that may be a material consideration in the determination of an individual planning application. . There are also tools available to LPAs to deal with changing situations e.g. for First Homes, LPAs were encouraged to produce ‘interim policy statements'.
The consultation does not specifically reference topics e.g. the environment, so on the face of it policy and guidance relating to these matters will be subject to the same rules that apply to all Supplementary Plans (SPs). Our consultation events highlighted questions about how SPs might apply to matters including Conservation Area Appraisals, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Management Plans, AONB Design Guidance, mitigation strategies for a Special Protection Area, Nutrient Neutrality etc.- DLUHC are consulting with Natural England specifically on these sorts of matters.
Further information on the production of Local Guidance in terms of scope, production, consultation etc would be difficult to make to cover every eventuality. However PAS is suggesting to Government that support, especially in the early days of the new system, for helping councils transition their SPDs will be a good idea. Learning from this type of support will be valuable to share across all LPAs to help them make their own judgements. A requirement to consult on local guidance documents has not been mentioned in consultation but may appear in regulations.
Nothing is set out in the consultation about this, however, to be helpful, we have set out a few thoughts.
At the heart of this question is how much weight will be given to current Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) information that is not included in the Local Plan or a Supplementary Plan, but does end up as ‘Local Guidance’?
At the present point in time, the only certainty regarding ‘weight’ indicated by the reforms consultation is that SPD information that makes its way into the Local Plan or a Supplementary Plan will carry the same weight of the Local Plan in the reformed planning system.
It follows then, that the weight afforded to ‘Local Guidance’ will be no different to that currently afforded to any non-statutory but material planning document; it will depend on many variables (e.g. consistency with the local plan, extent of consultation, clarity etc.) and is only really tested on relevance to specific cases.
The are too many interrelated factors potentially at play to provide a definitive answer to this question. It depends on how far you have developed the Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), what it is for, the circumstances/reasons it is required, and where you are in terms of updating/reviewing your Local Plan.
For example if you are yet to start work on an SPD and are also about to start updating the Local Plan, your time and energy would be better spent assessing how the information intended for the SPD can be integrated into the revised/new Local Plan. If your plan has recently been adopted, and you require an SPD to be in place as soon as possible, then finalising or creating an SPD now may be an option – but you will have to be confident that the SPD will be adopted prior to the enactment of the LURA provisions that usher in the new planning system in Autumn 2024. See the section on transition.
It depends on the age of the local plan. This dictates when you are required to create a new Local Plan (in the new system when it comes into force), and when your current Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) expire. Here are some rules of thumb using fixed dates in places (for simplicity and illustration), you can use these to work out roughly where your LPA sits:
- Once the new planning system comes into force existing SPDs will expire on the date at which a Local Planning Authority (LPA) is required to adopt its new-style local plan i.e. 30 months after plan preparation commences.
- The earliest point at which current SPDs expire: if an LPA starts to create a new local plan as soon as the new planning system comes into force in (e.g. November 2024), then any existing SPD will expire in April 2027 (i.e. when the new local plan is adopted).
- The latest time that a current SPD will expire – where LPAs have adopted their local plan in the old system (by the required date of 31 December 2026), and therefore have to begin making their new system plan on 31st December 2031, their current SPDs will expire in June 2034 (i.e. when the new Local Plan is adopted).
- Where an authority is working towards the 30 June 2025 deadline (to get a plan in place in the current system) and they miss it, their SPDs will expire 30 months after that date i.e. at the end of December 2027.
Consultation & Examination
Informal engagement will be encouraged throughout the supplementary (and indeed the full Local Plan) plan-making process. However, there is a balance to be struck between flexibly responding to planning needs at pace, whilst ensuring there are sufficient meaningful formal consultation opportunities.
The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 ensures that regulations will require a proposed SP to be the subject of consultation with the public. The Government intend to set out in regulations that supplementary plans should have a minimum of one formal consultation stage, the period for which will be set out in the local plan timetable or minerals and waste plan timetable.
There may not be any fixed rules. Informal engagement will be encouraged throughout the supplementary plan-making process and, because of their specific nature, then generally one round of ‘official’ consultation will be enough for most SPs. However, there may be circumstances in which the LPA decide that more than one round of official consultation is required and that will be up to the LPA. All of this will need to be balanced by the LPA against the objective of the SP being designed as a means of reacting quickly to changing circumstances.
It is the intention for Supplementary Plans (SPs) to be examined in a system modelled on that currently used to examine Neighbourhood Plans including the use of both the Planning Inspectorate and independent examiners.
Many of the questions Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) have on this subject relate to the integrity of examiners, whether plans examined by PINS will have more weight, and whether independent examiners will have conflicts of interest when examining SPs especially for large schemes.
There is no reason that the system proposed for SPs should carry any more risk than that for Neighbourhood Plans. Examiners will be subject to an appointment process, demonstrably possess the relevant skill set and experience, and operate under the same examination system and rules.
LPAs have asked if guidance to appointing a "suitably independent person" will be made available and pointed out that procurement of independent examiners can sometimes be a complicated process. We have passed these points on to DLUHC.
There is not any information on this. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 sets out that an examiner cannot recommend that a supplementary plan is adopted until they consider that the relevant procedural requirements have been met. These include (among other things) consideration of whether the authority or plan:
- have complied with any requirements relating to the preparation of supplementary plans set out in regulations, including requirements in relation to consultation with the public;
- has had regard to government guidance that may be relevant. It is expected that this will apply to all planning guidance, including the extent of evidence required, rather than simply new guidance prepared to support the preparation and examination of supplementary plans.
The place of EORs will be set out in ‘relevant procedural requirements.’
Design Codes & Supplementary Plans
Design Codes can be produced either as part of the local plan or as a Supplementary Plan. LPAs have a requirement via the Levelling Up & Regeneration Act 2023 to produce an authority wide design code and this can be as part of the local plan or as a Supplementary Plan. LPAs are also able to prepare design codes at other scales (area specific, such as town centres, or site-specific code) as part of the local plan or as a Supplementary Plan.
There is guidance out already via the National Model Design Code and authorities are already able to produce design codes. Further guidance is expected next year to align with further updates to NPPF planning practice guidance.
The reference to two officers to manage the code production is drawn from learning from the design code Pathfinders. How much time and resource required to produce design codes, authority wide or site specific, will depend on the timings to produce it, the timescale required and the focus of the code, for example the evidence base and vision for the authority-wide design code can inform the preparation of a local plan.
Yes.
No, it is important that a design code focuses on its primary role - to set out the design considerations and requirements for an area. The National Model Design Code recognises that design codes can specify a range of different design considerations to deliver well-designed places holistically, from the appearance and layout of buildings, through to enhancing health and wellbeing, the natural environment and environmental performance to contribute to net zero targets.
It is a requirement for a local authority to produce an authority wide code that can either be part of the local plan or as a Supplementary Plan. An authority does not therefore have to produce their authority wide codes as a Supplementary plan if they choose to prepare as part of their local plan.