Comment
School’s out – and so is long-awaited guidance on planning for education infrastructure
The Department for Education chose the midpoint of the summer holidays to release long awaited non-statutory guidance [1] that aims to help plan for the demand for school places generated by housing growth.
This guidance will mainly be used to determine reasonable developer contributions, but it will also assist practitioners in establishing whether there is sufficient capacity to absorb demand generated by emerging development proposals or site allocations.
The guidance is supplemented by a new dashboard which for the first time provides consistent pupil product yields for all local authorities, broken down by number of bedrooms, housing type and tenure and each education level including early years, primary, secondary, post-16 and special schools. This should enable the more accurate and robust estimation of pupil demand and will reduce inconsistencies. By breaking down pupil yields by these variables, specifically distinguishing between market and affordable homes, all parties will be able to better understand the need for education provision arising from different types of housing development.
For now, local authorities are encouraged to use the guidance alongside, rather than instead of, existing approaches. When existing local education policies are reviewed, however, the expectation is that local authorities will draw their pupil yields from the national dashboard while aligning their overall strategy with the new guidance. Local authorities are encouraged to incorporate a range of data sources – including the Population Yield Calculator for London boroughs and existing forecasting models – when assessing the future uplift in demand. Utilising all available data in the round is clearly the recommended approach.
From a planning perspective, the guidance will help housing developers to better understand the basis for any requested contributions, allowing them to be more closely scrutinised to verify that they are proportionate and reasonable. It will also simplify efforts to check that individual settlements have sufficient capacity to accommodate demand generated by development proposals or sites put forward for allocation.
If you require support or advice regarding this updated guidance, please contact Andrew Lowe or Robert Stott.
18 August 2023