Well connected stations: A view from the observation carriage

Following the recent Places and Spaces webinar, James Bevis from i-Transport, contributes to this follow-up article. 

As debates around the draft NPPF intensify, the role of “well‑connected stations” has become a defining issue in shaping future housing growth. This article explores what the proposed policy really means—and where its practical challenges lie.

What happened to January and February?  It only seems to be a few days ago that we received the wonderful early Christmas present of the draft NPPF.

The ‘default yes’ proposal and why it matters

Now, having spent many hours responding to urgent client queries of ‘is my site near a well connected station?’ and ‘what is reasonable walking distance?’, and with the consultation deadline of 10 March looming, it is perhaps a good time to reflect on the government’s proposed ‘default yes’ for housing development located outside of settlement boundaries or in the Green Belt but within reasonable walking distance of a well-connected station.

The first thing to say is that it is a jolly sensible policy.  Locating housing where people can readily access jobs and other services without using their cars is clearly a good thing.  People far cleverer than me agree, for example Zack Simons KC gave it his Planoraks Planning Policy of the Year 2025 award, and rightly so.

Writing national planning policy is an unenviable task.  On one hand, are you so prescriptive that the policy results in unintended consequences?  Or do you leave it down to planning judgment such that there is uncertainty over what is and what isn’t acceptable?  Whatever you do there will be a load of Smart Alecs picking holes and making snide points.

Yes, there are some potential absurdities with the policy as drafted.  Hopefully, they will get ironed out following the consultation period without the policy becoming unduly prescriptive or unhelpfully vague.

So, trying to temper my inner Smart Alec, my personal views on the two critical criteria to judge whether the default yes applies are set out below.

Firstly, let’s remind ourselves what the NPPF actually says:

S5: Principle of development outside settlements

Only certain forms of development should be approved outside settlements, as set out in the following list. These should be approved, unless the benefits of doing so would be substantially outweighed by any adverse effects, when assessed against the national decision-making policies in this Framework:

[…]

Development for housing and mixed-use development which would be: within reasonable walking distance of a railway station which provides a high level of connectivity to jobs and services²⁶; physically well-related to a railway station or a settlement within which the station is located

Footnote 26 states:

²⁶ Well-connected rail stations and underground, tram and light rail stops are those in a top 60 Travel to Work Area located partially or fully within England by Gross Value Added (GVA) and which, in the normal weekday timetable, are served (or have a reasonable prospect of being served due to planned upgrades or through agreement with the rail operator) throughout the daytime by four trains or trams per hour overall, or two trains or trams per hour in any one direction. 

Rethinking ‘reasonable walking distance’

So, let’s deal with reasonable walking distance first.  The NPPF doesn’t define this but 800m seems to be where this may end up based on Matthew Pennycook’s response to a Parliamentary question.

At this point, my head is my hands.  800m is a completely made-up figure broadly equivalent to 10-minute walk.  It has been somewhat lazily used by generations of transport planners (of which I am guilty on occasion of being one) because it seems to be easier than having to think.  In terms of the provenance of this figure, it may come from a Victorian rule-of-thumb that the most valuable real estate was within around half-a-mile from a station.  Building near stations is not a new idea it seems…

People will and do walk much further.  The propensity to walk depends on much more than distance.  The quality of the route, the frequency of service when you get there, the quality of the station, the quality of the trains, the destinations served, the journey time, etc. etc. will all influence how far people will walk.  TfL use a 960m walking distance to a station in their PTAL calculations and National Travel Survey data shows that the average distance that people walk to a station is well over a kilometre.

Defining a well‑connected station

At 800m key opportunities will be lost.  Most well connected stations will have few sites that sit entirely within an 800m walking distance.  The unintended consequence of using 800m will be that there will too few sites that will benefit from the default yes.  If we’re really trying to build more houses, let’s not be too prescriptive, other than being clear than people will walk at least 1,000m to access a well-connected station.

A well-connected station is one that sits within a top 60 TTW area ranked by GVA.  If you want to know what TTW area a site sits in then MapIt is a useful tool, and the ONS provide the data itself.

A cut off of the Top 60 results in some notable areas where the default yes won’t apply, including ‘big hitters’ such as: Bath, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Chesterfield, Colchester, Doncaster, Durham, Harrogate, Kettering, Newbury, Plymouth, Swansea, Worcester….

It also creates some anomalies – Emsworth (Portsmouth TTW area – 30^th) is a well-connected station whereas Southbourne (Chichester and Bognor Regis TTW area – 79^th) is not.  It’s a two-minute train ride between the two, and the journey time into London Victoria is slightly shorter from Southbourne.

Top 60 is too tightly drawn.  Top 80 has been suggested by some but why not go further?  For example, Ashford International, which has a quite brilliant level of service and may see a return of trains to Paris in the summer, is in the 117^th TTW area.   By applying a cut off there will always be winners and losers but lots of really good sites will miss out if the policy, as currently drafted, is applied dogmatically.

There are of course other points that need to be considered: what is the role of Network Rail in all of this?  Will they become any easier to deal with as they become a key stakeholder in delivering development near stations?  As a majority public owned body, is their ‘shared value’ approach an unnecessary major blocker to development delivery?  Lots to think about, and one for another day…

For now, I look forward to seeing how the NPPF is shaped by the consultation process.  I’m anticipating a new ‘fast track’ for much needed new housing.  Sorry…

How the NPPF tackles affordable housing

The need for affordable housing is an ever-increasing problem in the England. According to statistics released by Shelter (2025) there are 1.3 million households on social housing waiting lists across the England. From “Social Rent” and “Affordable Rent” units that are managed by affordable housing providers to First Homes, (new build properties sold at a discount by developers), affordable homes play an important part in the delivery of new housing in England.  Concerns have however been raised over the ongoing delay in delivering affordable housing together with the true affordability of some affordable housing schemes.  In this article, we take a look at some of the ways the new NPPF will attempt to tackle these so far insufficiently addressed issues.

The new NPPF seeks to address affordability by requiring a greater emphasis on the provision of “Social Rent” housing.  A definition of “Social Rent”, is now included in the NPPF, requiring rent to “remain at an affordable price for future eligible households…”.  “Affordable Rent” homes on the other hand, are homes rented out by affordable housing providers at up to 80% of the private rented value of the property in its local area. In some areas of England, the reality is that the rent is simply not affordable, even at the discounted rate. Ultimately, it will be for the local authorities to decide on the level of “Social Rent” homes that are required in their local areas. Where a need for affordable housing is identified, “planning policies should specify the type of affordable housing required” which should include “the minimum proportion of Social Rent homes required”.  This is undoubtedly a positive step in ensuring that affordable homes are given necessary priority, but it remains to be seen whether enough “Social Rent” homes will actually be built to meet demand.

The requirement for developers in the NPPF to deliver a minimum of 25% of affordable housing as First Homes within a site’s affordable housing mix now no longer applies.  First Homes are housing offered to first-time buyers at a discount of at least 30% of the private open market value.  The NPPF now leaves it open for local authorities to decide on the delivery of First Homes where they consider that the housing meets a genuine local need – providing flexibility for local authorities to require a mixture of affordable housing tenures within a new development.

Affordable housing in Green Belt development has also now been addressed by the new NPPF with the introduction of the “Golden Rules”.  The NPPF states that the boundaries of the Green Belt” should only be altered where exceptional circumstances are fully evidenced and justified”.  Local authorities with Green Belt areas will have to carefully review their Green Belt boundaries and where a decision is taken to release Green Belt land for development, plans should give priority to previously developed land, then consider grey belt which is not previously developed, and then other Green Belt locations”.  As part of the “Golden Rules” a specific affordable housing requirement should be set by local authorities for major housing development within the Green Belt or on land set to be released from the Green Belt.  This requirement will be set at higher level than land that is not within or proposed to be released from the Green Belt and it should require a provision of at least 50% affordable housing.  Whilst local plans are being updated to reflect the 50% requirement, interim provisions set out in NPPF, allow for affordable housing to be delivered at a rate of 15% above the existing affordable housing requirement – extending up to a 50% cap.  Where a local authority does not already have a pre-existing requirement for affordable housing, a 50% affordable housing contribution should now generally apply by default. This is subject to the caveat that such requirements would not apply if it would make the development site unviable where the “use of site-specific viability assessment for land within or released from the Green Belt should be subject to the approach set out in national planning practice guidance on viability”.  The NPPF clarifies: “The 50% cap does not apply to rural exception sites or community-led development exception sites, or if the local planning authority has a relevant existing policy which would apply to the development which is above 50%”.

Review of Green Belt boundaries could result in the release of land for development which in turn will create opportunities for affordable housing.  But, given that only a small part of England is covered by Green Belt, it is unclear the extent to which this new requirement will really assist the government in reaching their 1.5 million new homes target.

Whilst the changes appear a positive step to providing future additional affordable housing in the England, little appears to have been done to tackle the immediate demand for affordable housing.

The delivery gap: why affordable housing still lags behind

Section 106 agreements are used by local planning authorities to deliver on-site affordable housing in line with development milestones as a development progresses. As an alternative, registered affordable housing providers can apply for grant funding through the government’s Affordable Homes Programme for non-section 106 agreement affordable housing units (where the funding can’t be used).  According to a recent survey carried out by the Home Builders Federation (“HBF”), at least 17,432 section 106 agreement affordable housing units with detailed planning permission are not subject to a contract with a registered affordable housing provider and there are currently 139 housing development sites that are delayed due to being unable to find a registered affordable housing provider for the section 106 agreement affordable housing units. The HBF survey report proposes solutions to combat this issue including: (1) working with local planning authorities to agree “cascade agreements” – to allow developers to continue to build out homes in the event that a registered affordable housing provider cannot be found for their development by either agreeing a change in the tenures of the affordable homes or making a payment in lieu of the affordable homes as a last resort; (2) encouraging developers to engage with registered affordable housing providers much earlier on in their development schemes; (3) allowing registered affordable housing providers to use grant funding for section 106 agreement affordable housing units for a limited period; and (4) looking at the financial capacity of the affordable housing sector and how that can be improved.

The changes to the NPPF are the first steps in a much longer journey in trying to provide enough affordable homes to meet future need. It seems clear however that the government, local planning authorities and industry leaders will need to work quickly together to find a workable solution to elevate the immediate current need for affordable housing in the UK.

Watch the Places and Spaces webinar on these topics.

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