Pickles appoints Lord Taylor to review planning guidance

Lord Taylor will be leading the review which will be conducted by a small group to include Home Builders Federation (HBF) planning director Andrew Whitaker.

The review will look at the evidence base that is required for local authorities to produce local housing output targets, Whitaker has said, according to reports.

“I think the Taylor review is likely to say we’ll need guidance on how local authorities can produce those housing numbers,” Whitaker said.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has had plans to conduct a review of planning guidance since the publication of the NPPF in March this year. The NPPF consolidated over 1,000 pages of planning policy into around 50 pages and was drawn up by a small group of professional planners and environmental campaigners.

This review sets out a similar process for the more than 6,000 pages of planning guidance that currently exists. However, in this case the review will likely result in a set of recommendations for issues the guidance needs to address, with the drafting ultimately done internally by officials at the DCLG.

"The national planning policy framework has successfully distilled over 1,000 pages of policy into around 50, with clear benefits for every user of the system," said former housing minister Greg Clark in July. "The next challenge is to do the same with planning guidance - some 6,000 pages of it. Practitioners will have an important role to play in ensuring we establish clear, usable guidance that supports effective planning and I will shortly announce more details on the approach we propose to take."

Lord Taylor has previously been appointed by former prime minister Gordon Brown to run a review on how land use and planning can better support rural business and deliver affordable housing. His findings were published in 2008.