The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s (MHCLG) review of current planning policy for sustainable drainage (SuDS) in England has recently been published – but we question whether this exercise could have had more to do with validating the Government’s current policy approach, rather than an accurate and critical review of the application and effectiveness of planning policy for sustainable drainage systems.

Planning policy was strengthened in 2015 to make SuDS a requirement in all new major developments and encourage greater uptake. The original intentions of Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act (FWMA) 2010 were to bring about new arrangements, including to make the requirement for SuDS mandatory on new developments, complying with new National Standards on SuDS and answerable to a SuDS approval body (SAB). The question of the effectiveness and performance of the ‘strengthened’ planning system to implement SuDS is therefore a crucial one, particularly in terms of future policy design choices to support key stakeholders.

The MHCLG review examined how national planning policies for SuDS are reflected in local plans, finding that more than 80% of the adopted local plans contained policies reflecting the requirements of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) 2012. It examined the uptake of SuDS in new developments (commercial/mixed-use, major and minor housing), finding they are implemented at rates of 80 to 90%. The review concluded that it has shown that current arrangements for SuDS in planning have been successful in encouraging the take-up of sustainable drainage systems (p12).

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