If “planning permission should be granted unless the adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits — when assessed against the policies in the NPPF as a whole” — then speculative development and landbanking are those adverse impacts.

They distort housing delivery, inflate land values, delay infrastructure, and exploit the absence of up-to-date local policies — all contrary to the NPPF’s wider goals of plan-led, sustainable, balanced development.

A Planning Position Statement (PPS) is urgently needed to identify and limit this organised abuse of national policy. Failing to act is not neutrality. It is silent permission — and it is against the public interest, when assessed against the NPPF as a whole.