The NPPF: A Short History of a Long-Winded Way to Eye Up Fields

If you’ve ever tried to object to a planning application and ended up on page 47 of a council PDF at 1am, you’ve already met the NPPF – the National Planning Policy Framework.

It’s the master rulebook for planning in England. It decides whether your local field is “precious countryside” or “a sustainable location for 450 units and a token pond”.

This is the short version of its history – and why the answer should still be very simple:

Never build on the green belt. At all.

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Stage 1 – 2012: “We’ve made planning simple, honest”

Back in 2012, the Government replaced a mountain of old planning documents with one slimmer one: the NPPF.

The sales pitch:

• Simpler.

• Clearer.

• Easier for everyone.

On the green belt, it said all the comforting things:

• Green belt stops sprawl.

• Towns shouldn’t all merge into one giant car park.

• Development there is “inappropriate” except in very limited cases.

• You only build on it in “very special circumstances”.

So, in theory: hands off the green belt.

Meanwhile, the same document quietly introduced a strong presumption in favour of development.

That tension – “protect the green belt, but also build lots more houses” – has been the story ever since.

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Stage 2 – 2018: Same lines, more pressure

In 2018, the NPPF was updated.

The green belt chapter still sounded strict. Boundaries should only change in “exceptional circumstances”, and only through the Local Plan.

However, a new housing formula – the standard method – cranked up housing numbers in many areas.

The pattern went like this:

• Government: “Here’s a huge housing target.”

• Councils: “We’ve checked everything else… looks like we need the green belt.”

• Inspectors: “Well, if that’s the only way to meet your numbers…”

On paper, green belt was protected.

On the ground, it started to look surprisingly negotiable.

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Stage 3 – 2023: A brief wobble towards sanity

By 2023, even MPs had noticed that carving chunks out of the green belt might not be wildly popular.

The NPPF was tweaked again:

• Housing targets were described as more “advisory” than compulsory.

• Councils were told they didn’t have to review green belt boundaries every time they wrote a plan.

For a short while, councils had more cover to say:

“We’re constrained by green belt and flood risk; we physically can’t hit that number.”

For green belt, it was a small, rare moment where policy briefly resembled common sense.

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Stage 4 – 2024/25: Say hello to “grey belt”

Then the dial swung again.

The latest line from Westminster is basically:

“We’ll protect the green belt… except the bits we now call grey belt.”

Grey belt is the new label for bits of green belt someone decides don’t matter as much – scruffy edges, “degraded” land, places that are just a bit too tempting if you need easy housing numbers.

The idea is:

• Real green belt stays.

• Grey belt is “fair game” for development (with some rules about affordable housing and design).

The problem is obvious:

1. Once you create a second-class category, more and more land mysteriously slips into it.

2. From the point of view of nature, food production and floodwater, there is no practical difference between “green belt” and “grey belt” once it’s under concrete.

The wording about “exceptional circumstances” and “very special circumstances” is still there. It’s just being stretched, again.

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What the last decade really shows

If you strip out the jargon and the ministerial speeches, the NPPF story is:

• 2012: “We’ve simplified planning. Green belt is safe.”

• 2018: “You must protect green belt. Also, here’s a housing target that makes that almost impossible.”

• 2023: “All right, maybe we overdid it. Targets are flexible. Please stop rebelling.”

• 2024/25: “Don’t worry, we still love the green belt. We’ve just invented a new kind of belt we’re allowed to build all over.”

The language stays soothing. The mechanisms keep nudging towards building on more land.

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Why “never build on green belt” still matters

We are on a small, flood-prone island with:

• A climate crisis,

• A food security problem,

• Infrastructure that already creaks.

Green belt is not perfect, but it is one of the few blunt tools that:

• Stops towns joining up into one long dual carriageway,

• Preserves open space,

• Holds back at least some speculative sprawl.

Every time we make another exception – “just this corner”, “just this site”, “just this grey bit” – the principle weakens.

So the position is simple:

• No “just this once”.

• No “it’s only grey belt”.

• No “the spreadsheet made us do it”.

If we need more homes (and we do), we should:

• Use brownfield first, properly.

• Reuse and densify where infrastructure already exists.

• Stop treating farmland and floodplains as the path of least resistance.

Because once you pour concrete on land, it is very rarely “undeveloped” again.

Whatever version of the NPPF we’re on this year, one rule should stay non-negotiable:

Never build on the green belt.