Are Minerals still “essential”?

Regardless of the shape of the planning system over the decades, the Government has always said that minerals are essential to provide everything the country needs in terms of infrastructure, buildings, energy and goods. But does the draft NPPF signal a change?

So, back in 2006 (when we had regional planning bodies, and regional spatial strategies … ) the Government told us in Minerals Policy Statement 1 that “minerals make an essential contribution to the nation’s prosperity”, a refrain that has been repeated ever since, including in every version of the NPPF published to date, finding its current home in NPPF paragraph 222.

But things are about to change: as the shape of the planning system changes once again, the new draft NPPF, which is going to be published, er, sometime soon, simply says that that objective of the minerals policies in new Chapter 11 is to “ensure there is a sufficient supply of minerals to provide” the infrastructure etc that the country needs.

So, does this mean that the Government is cooling on the importance of minerals? Some have suggested it does.

But that suggestion is very difficult to square with the very first sentence of MHCLG’s consultation on Chapter 11: “A sufficient supply of minerals is essential to delivering the infrastructure, buildings, green energy and goods that the country needs to support society, national growth and transition to net zero …”.

Plainly, the Government’s position hasn’t changed. The key question, then, is whether the fact that new Chapter 11 does not say that minerals are essential will make new policies M1-M6 less effective in terms of securing the supply of minerals and the protection of minerals infrastructure than the current NPPF. In short, it won’t. There are some relatively minor changes in terms of the wording, for example new policy M1says that there should be a “sufficient” supply of minerals, whereas the current NPPF calls for a “steady and adequate” supply, but that is not a fundamental change, as the steadiness of the supply is of course a factor that can be taken into account when deciding whether the supply is sufficient. And whilst (along with a number of other examples, e.g. school provision) the requirement for “great” weight to be given to mineral supply is changed to “substantial”, this is for reasons of consistency across the new NPPF, and MHCLG makes clear that it is not intended to diminish the weight to be given.

And just stepping back from the detail, how helpful is it to describe the supply of minerals as “essential”? Surely it is essential to deliver all the big ticket items – housing, jobs, education, infrastructure etc? Yet the current NPPF does not say that it is. In that sense, ascribing an overarching badge, i.e. “critical”, “vital”, “essential” etc, isn’t actually very helpful – what matters is what the policies say, not the banner under which they appear.

So, in short, the removal of the word essential should not be taken as a watering down of the Government’s longstanding commitment to ensuring an adequate supply of minerals and the protection of minerals infrastructure - they will remain as essential as ever, even without an express statement to that effect.

Robert Walton KC is a Barrister at Landmark Chambers, undertaking work for private developers, central and local government, public bodies, private objectors and interest groups.