We recommend that the Government should amend the definition of the presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’ in the December 2024 revision of the NPPF to give greater weight to environmental sustainability. This should include strengthening safeguards against environmentally unsustainable, unplanned and speculative development. These revised definitions should be provided to the Committee in the Government’s response to this report. (Recommendation, Paragraph 45)

We recommend that the Government should amend the definition of the presumption in favour of ‘sustainable development’ in the December 2024 revision of the NPPF to give greater weight to environmental sustainability. This should include strengthening safeguards against environmentally unsustainable, unplanned and speculative development. These revised definitions should be provided to the Committee in the Government’s response to this report. (Recommendation, Paragraph 45) Type: recommendation | Number: 7 | Response status: under_consideration Government response: 21. The Duty to Cooperate was put in place to help bridge the gap in co- operation resulting from the abolition of regional planning. However, as a legal provision it has, at times, been difficult to comply with and has led to some notable local plan failures. This is in part because any shortcoming