CLARIFYING THE STATUS OF PLANNING PRACTICE GUIDANCE

On 30 January 2025, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Mead Realisations Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] EWCA Civ 32. The case related to the sequential test for flood risk in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and Planning Practice Guidance (PPG), but the Court’s decision is relevant to all types of development. In the leading judgment, Sir Keith Lindblom, Senior President of Tribunals, helpfully confirmed the relationship between national planning policy in the NPPF and PPG respectively, confirming that they have equal status. As a matter of law, both are statements of national policy issued by the minister with overall responsibility for the operation of the planning system, and both are capable of being material considerations in the determination of planning applications. Whilst this decision doesn’t change the status quo as such, it is a welcome clarification of how the Secretary of State can exercise her “wide” and “flexible” discretion to formulate planning policy.

NPPF and PPG have equal status

PPG has perhaps been regarded historically as subservient to the NPPF, but this ruling confirms that equal status should be afforded to the PPG. The Court held that the PPG “complements” national planning policy in the NPPF and explains, clarifies or elucidates the policies in the NPPF to which it relates. Ideally, national planning policy and guidance should not be inconsistent, but this judgment confirms that there is no legal reason why the PPG has to be consistent with the NPPF – and therefore in theory at least, PPG could actually be used to amend the NPPF.

What does this mean for developers?

Specifically in relation to flood risk, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the PPG did not amend paragraph 162 of the NPPF in relation to “reasonably available sites” and the sequential test, but instead provides “practical guidance on the application of the policy”. Applicants and local planning authorities must therefore have careful regard to both sources of policy when considering flood risk. This places greater importance on the updated PPG on flood risk and the sequential test, which we expect to be published by the government soon.

However, this ruling is relevant to all types of development since it relates to the whole canon of national planning policy and guidance.

The Court held that the NPPF and PPG can “be used as an aid to the interpretation of each other,” so it is important that decision-makers and developers pay careful attention to both sources of policy when considering development proposals. Developers will be able to use the PPG to support their development proposals to a greater extent than they have in the past. Officers’ reports and planning committee decisions will need to take care to give equal status to the NPPF and PPG, although the weight to be afforded to individual policies will continue to be a matter of discretion for decision-makers.

However, a note of caution – PPG is updated by publication online, and generally without prior consultation, enabling the government to refine or even fundamentally alter national planning policy quickly and easily. Going forward, it will be even more important to pay close attention to updates to the PPG, given the potentially profound implications if they change the established policies or policy direction set out in the NPPF.

Although the NPPF is intended to be a “comprehensive framework” of national planning policy, the reality in light of this case is that the PPG must always be considered alongside and in addition to the NPPF. The original purpose of the NPPF in 2012 was to consolidate all policy statements, circulars and guidance documents into a single, simple document. Since then, we have seen a gradual expansion and disaggregation of policy beyond the NPPF and this decision by the Court of Appeal is perhaps an inevitable consequence of that trend. A physicist would observe that this increasing entropy means that even the planning system is subject to the second law of thermodynamics!

By Matthew White