The long-awaited draft amendments to the NPPF

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has published the long-awaited draft updated NPPF for consultation today. Examining Section 16 “Conserving and enhancing the historic environment”, the text is largely the same as the 2012 document, although the text has been split into helpful sub-sections setting out the policies relevant to “proposals” and to “impacts”.

There are some minor tweaks to the wording of some of the policies relating to “impacts”, in particular acknowledging that any degree of harm to a designated heritage asset attracts great weight to the asset’s conservation (paragraph 189). Interestingly, the paragraph referring to less than substantial harm has now had the text of “securing the optimum viable use” removed – although this is still present in the introduction in paragraph 183.

Finally, and fundamentally, when considering harm to a Conservation Area or a World Heritage Site, the draft NPPF now clarifies that it is the contribution of an element to the significance of the asset as a whole – for example, a Conservation Area in its totality, not just a street or a character area.