SeagullTwo National planning policy — the shared layer
One place for the two things every companion skill needs from national policy: which edition is current (and the discipline of checking before citing), and the decision-making core that no topic catalogue owns — the statutory starting point, the presumption, and the tests for conditions and obligations.
When to use
- From the companion skills —
application-triage(Step 2, establishing the decision framework),policy-compliance-assessment(the national and emerging tiers of its policy table, and the plan-status and presumption tests),policy-representation(verifying every citation before a draft is sent) and the topic representation skills (when mapping deficiencies to national policy): check the edition register here before citing the NPPF/PPG, and take the shared decision-making citations from here rather than restating them per topic. - Directly — the user asks "what does the NPPF say about …", "is this paragraph number still right", "does the tilted balance apply here".
Two layers, no duplication
This skill owns the shared core and the edition register — the national tier. The
local tier belongs to policy-compliance-assessment: identifying and verifying the
adopted development plan for the authority, and assessing and scoring a proposal against its
policies. Keep the hierarchy the right way up when citing from here — adopted local policies
are the council's own and have primacy; the Framework is a material consideration alongside
the plan, not above it. The topic skills' own references/national-guidance.md files own
their topic chapters and instruments
(ecology's Chapter 15 map, CIEEM and BCT editions; transport's Chapter 9, LTN 1/20 and
Manual for Streets; heritage's Chapter 16 and the 1990 Act duties; flood's paragraphs
170–182 and the climate-change allowances). Don't copy either layer into the other.
The verification protocol — read before citing anything
Never cite an NPPF paragraph number from memory. Editions renumber: December 2023 → December 2024 shifted several chapters by one, and the pending revision (below) restructures the entire document. A representation citing a stale paragraph loses credibility on the point it most needs it — and a superseded-edition citation is exactly the kind of defect the representation skills criticise applicants for.
Before a draft leaves any companion skill:
- Check the edition register below, then confirm it is still current at gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framework (the page's "Updates" tab shows the edition history).
- Verify each cited paragraph against the live text — the gov.uk HTML is the quickest source; quote the paragraph, don't paraphrase from memory.
- If the edition has changed since the register below was verified: re-verify every NPPF citation in the draft, tell the user the framework has changed, and update this register and any affected topic catalogue (with changelog entries).
- PPG: cite by the paragraph ID (e.g. "Paragraph: 001 Reference ID: 21a-001-…") and the page's "last updated" date — PPG pages revise independently and silently.
⏳ Edition register (verified 18 August 2026 — re-verify at run time)
- NPPF in force: 17 August 2026 edition (published 17 Aug 2026, replacing the December 2024 edition — confirmed on the gov.uk publication page's edition history). This is the anticipated restructuring: the Framework is now organised as coded policies in themed chapters rather than sequentially numbered paragraphs, so every pre-August-2026 paragraph-number citation is stale. Live text: gov.uk/guidance/national-planning-policy-framework.
- ⚠ Repo-wide re-verification in progress. The decision-making core below and the topic catalogues in the representation skills were verified against the December 2024 text and have not yet been re-mapped to the new policy codes — until that is done, treat every NPPF reference in this repo as a pointer to the concept, and verify the current code and wording against the live text before citing (protocol above). Applications determined before 17 August 2026 were decided under the earlier edition; when reviewing a past decision, cite the edition in force at determination.
- PPG: web-based guidance suite, revised page-by-page — no single edition; rely on per-page "last updated" dates.
The decision-making core (⏳ verified against the December 2024 text — re-map to the August 2026 policy codes before citing)
The statutory starting point. Section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004: applications must be determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise (see also s.70(2) TCPA 1990). The NPPF restates this at para 2 and para 48, and para 2 confirms the Framework itself "is a material consideration in planning decisions" — influential, but not above the plan. Para 12: the presumption in favour of sustainable development "does not change the statutory status of the development plan as the starting point for decision-making."
The presumption / "tilted balance" — paras 10–11. For decision-taking, para 11(c): approve development that accords with an up-to-date plan without delay. Para 11(d) — the tilted balance — applies only where there are no relevant development plan policies, or the policies which are most important for determining the application are out-of-date (footnote 8: including where no five-year housing land supply can be demonstrated, or the Housing Delivery Test result was below 75%). Even then, permission should be refused if footnote 7 assets provide a clear reason to (habitats sites, SSSIs, Green Belt, Local Green Space, National Landscapes, National Parks/Broads, Heritage Coast, irreplaceable habitats, designated heritage assets, areas at risk of flooding or coastal change) — the "footnote 7 disapplication" — or if adverse impacts would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits. Whether the tilted balance is engaged, and whether footnote 7 switches it off, is often decisive: check it before framing any objection strategically.
Emerging plans — para 49. Weight according to (a) the stage of preparation, (b) the extent of unresolved objections, and (c) the degree of consistency with the Framework.
Planning conditions — para 57. Conditions should be kept to a minimum and only imposed where they are "necessary, relevant to planning and to the development to be permitted, enforceable, precise and reasonable in all other respects" — the six tests (PPG "Use of planning conditions"). Two uses for an objector: a condition that fails a test can be challenged; and a condition cannot be necessary if it papers over a fundamental evidence gap — "conditions are not a substitute for adequate assessment" anchors here.
Planning obligations — para 58. Obligations must only be sought where they meet the three tests of CIL Regulation 122(2): necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to it.
How this feeds the A/B/C discipline (see the representation skills, and the companion planning-balance skill which weighs the assembled case): outcome (A) usually means conflict with the development plan and/or a failed NPPF test with the balance against approval; outcome (B) means the decision-maker cannot yet lawfully strike that balance; outcome (C) lives inside the para 57/58 tests — the ask must itself pass them.
Scope and limitations
- Not legal advice, and no warranty. A reference layer for lay representations; not a substitute for a solicitor; provided "as is". Human review required before relying on any citation.
- England-focused. The NPPF/PPG are England; the devolved nations have their own frameworks — flag and adjust when outside England.
- Time-sensitive by nature. Everything here decays at the next NPPF revision — the verification protocol is the skill; the register is only a snapshot.