Well, that didn’t last very long. Just before Christmas, Michael Gove stood up in front of a room full of journalists and built environment professionals at the RIBA’s head office in Marylebone to announce his long-term plan for housing. 

His National Planning Policy Framework turned out to be decidely short-term in the end. But, while it lasted for just eight months, many in the housebuilding sector will tell you that this was time enough for it to do plenty of damage.

Now many of its most substantive changes are gone, replaced with a refreshed document cooked up by Angela Rayner, Matthew Pennycook and the rest of the team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (the DLUHC moniker having also been consigned to the scrap heap). This is not a whole new document – just a very substantive revision. 

Helpfully, if a little unusually, the ministry published a “tracked changes” copy of the original document to demonstrate the extent of the alterations. So, Building Design has sifted through the polished-up framework, and the associated consultation documents, to find out what is now in and what is out.