Settlement hierarchy · National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), August 2026
Service Village, Not Sustainable
A settlement hierarchy is a ranking of villages, made for the local plan. Under the 2024 NPPF it was a fair stand-in for "sustainable location". Under the August 2026 NPPF it cannot carry the point on its own. Whether a site is sustainable is decided on the route, under Policy TR3.
971decisions in the dataset sweptand all 1,400 appeal letters, as at 1 October 2026
90mention a settlement-tier hierarchy170 matched the search; 80 were false positives
2allowed by an inspector on the tier and a bare proximity statement11 more allowed or accepted on the tier beside route evidence
The tier still gets cited, but on its own it has never carried a site with a poor route. In every allowed case the inspector also had a bus service, lit footways or an urban setting to point to.
What it is
A ranking
The council scores its villages on size and a few services, then ranks them so the plan can send more housing to the better-served ones.
"It effectively ranks them so that housing is directed to the largest settlements with facilities…"Stratford Core Strategy Inspector, 2016, ¶271
NPPF, December 2024
A fair proxy
The Framework backed village growth and told decision-makers to allow for rural transport. A village's tier was a reasonable shorthand.
"opportunities to maximise sustainable transport solutions will vary between urban and rural areas, and this should be taken into account in both plan-making and decision-making."NPPF 2024, ¶110
NPPF, August 2026
Little weight on its own
That sentence is gone. Each site now gets a route test, and the tier cannot answer it by itself. The only rural wording left, TR3(1)(e), is a duty on the applicant to improve connectivity where it can, not an allowance for car use.
"limit the need to travel, particularly by private car, and offer a genuine choice of transport modes"NPPF 2026, TR3(1)(a)
"In rural areas, opportunities to improve walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport and enhance the connectivity of an area should be taken where they exist and can be supported by the development proposed."NPPF 2026, TR3(1)(e)
How much weight does the 2026 NPPF give the hierarchy?
There are four ways the tier could enter a decision. It survives as plan policy, and as a label inspectors cite beside route evidence. It decides none of them on its own.
In the Framework itselfwhole text
None
"Settlement hierarchy", "service village" and "service centre" never appear. The village-growth policy HO6(1)(b) is a plan-making policy, and ¶8 says "the plan-making policies should not be used when making decisions on development proposals."
As local plan policys.38(6), Annex A(2)
Plan accordance
A site inside a service village's boundary accords with the plan's spatial strategy, and that counts under s.38(6). The weight is the plan's, not the tier's: parts of a policy "which are materially inconsistent with national decision-making policies in this Framework should be given very limited weight." Stratford decisions under the 2026 Framework now treat Core Strategy policies CS.15, CS.16 and AS.10 in exactly that way.
Inside or outside a "settlement"Annex B → S4 or S5
Not the tier
Plan boundaries can count; the tier does not. And the definition "exclude[s] villages which lie within and are defined as part of the Green Belt", whatever their tier.
Sustainable locationTR3, and GB7(1)(g)(iii) in the Green Belt
Not on its own
TR3 asks about a genuine choice of transport modes on the actual journey, and TR3(2) says the government's Connectivity Tool should be used. Inspectors do cite a village's tier when they find a location sustainable, but in every allowed case they also had a bus service, lit footways or an urban setting to point to. Where the route was poor, the tier did not save the site.
On the question that matters most, whether this site is sustainable, the hierarchy cannot carry the answer. The route has to.
What "Category 3" actually measured
Claverdon · Stratford's 2014 scoring
Size2
Shop1
Primary school3
Public transport0
Total 6 → Category 3 (5–7)of 12
Stratford's Local Service Villages (LSVs) are scored on four things: size, a shop, a primary school and public transport. Claverdon reached Category 3 on its school and its size.
On public transport it scored zero.
TR3 applies to every site, whatever the tier. But the lower the tier, the less the label says about getting around without a car. At Category 3 in Claverdon it says nothing, so the answer has to come from the route.
Inspectors decide on the route
Appeals under the 2026 Framework, dismissed because the walk failed. A named service village, or a station close by, did not save them. A sweep of every decision in the dataset, below, found that only 170 mention a settlement-tier label (90 in the hierarchy sense). Two appeals in the dataset were allowed on the tier plus a bare proximity statement, with no route facts (6007104 Henfield, 6008253 Aston Clinton). In each, the inspector recorded reasonable public transport for the village. In every other allowed case the tier sat beside route evidence: a daily or better bus, lit footways or an urban setting. Where the route was poor, the label did not save the site. The Council’s own approvals on the shorthand are stratford-26-01458-FUL Earlswood, stratford-26-01764-PIP Kineton.
FindonDismissed
"The nearest settlement to the appeal site is Findon which is a service village … future occupiers would have a reliance on the private car."
The other side of the ledger. The tier was cited in favour in allowed appeals too, and the route evidence beside it is the tell: 6010973 Broadwas (Category 2, a daily bus; car reliance "no different for the residents of the appeal site and the residents of existing housing in the village"), 6011103 Biddulph Moor (larger village, lit footways), 6006497 Chaldon (Connectivity Tool band A, benchmarked against Category 2 settlements). One Green Belt case passed GB7(1)(g)(iii) with no route facts at all: 6007484 Tarleton, where car reliance was "not unusual in a rural context". That inspector quoted the deleted 2024 sentence as if it were still in the Framework; nothing in TR3 says it. The 2026 rural wording cuts the other way: at 6000903 Trewarmett the inspector held that TR3(1)(e) expects proposals "to take opportunities to improve rural connectivity" and that the scheme "has not been shown to do so". Expect the Tarleton argument at Claverdon; the answers are the route table below and a scheme that offers no footway, crossing or lighting.
What a sweep of every decision found
The sweep covered every decision in the dataset as it stood on 1 October 2026 — all 971 case files and all 1,400 appeal letters in the corpus. Only 170 mention a settlement-tier label at all, and 80 of those are false positives of the deliberately broad search (generic wording such as “local services”), leaving 90 that use a tier in the hierarchy sense. The great majority of decisions never mention a tier and decide location without reference to the hierarchy.
Every decision letter and case file in the dataset was searched for any settlement-tier label (“service village”, “Local Service Village”, “Key Service Centre”, “Category 1–4”, “tier 2 settlement” and the like). That found 170 decisions, each read at every matching passage and classified by how, if at all, the label influenced the result. Every quotation here and on the sub-pages is taken verbatim from that register and was checked against the decision letter: 174 of 174 matched. Council-decision quotations are verified against the case file, because officer reports are not in the letter corpus.
Two appeals in the dataset were allowed on the tier plus a bare proximity statement, with no route facts (6007104 Henfield, 6008253 Aston Clinton). In each, the inspector recorded reasonable public transport for the village. In every other allowed case the tier sat beside route evidence: a daily or better bus, lit footways or an urban setting. Where the route was poor, the label did not save the site. The Council’s own approvals on the shorthand are stratford-26-01458-FUL Earlswood, stratford-26-01764-PIP Kineton.
How the tier was used
Decisions
A — relied on for the scheme
19 (A1 with real route evidence 11 · A2 tier as the finding, no route analysis 6 · other 2)
B — used against the scheme
43
C — tier noted, decided on the route
6
D — descriptive only
22
E — raised by a party, not adopted
0
F — false positive of the search
80
A2 — the tier used as the sustainability finding, with no route analysis
The shorthand this piece is about. Two appeals were allowed on it (6007104 Henfield, 6008253 Aston Clinton); two appeals were dismissed on other grounds with the tier accepted on location; the other approvals are the Council’s.
6007104Land adjacent to Cedar Cottage, Furners Lane, Henfield, Horsham (24 Aug 2026) — allowed. Tier 2 ("reasonable public transport services") plus a bare proximity statement ("close to High Street services, the primary school, and bus stops") is the whole location finding; no footway, lighting or frequency facts; allowed under S5(1)(j).
6007771Church View, Wilsthorpe Road, Braceborough, South Kesteven (17 Aug 2026) — dismissed. Tier treated as making the site "a sustainable location where small infill is supported in principle" with no route analysis; dismissed on other grounds.
6008253Land East of College Road South, Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire (24 Sept 2026) — allowed. Larger Village tier "making it a sustainable location for development" is the only articulated location reasoning; the location was common ground ("an agreed accessible location", ¶57); allowed, with secured off-site connectivity works.
6010196Land at OS 7540 6621 Stourport Road, Great Witley (4 dwellings), Malvern Hills (18 Sept 2026) — dismissed. Tier → "therefore reasonably accessible to the village’s services" with no route analysis; dismissed on other grounds.
stratford-26-01458-FULThe Barn, Tithe Barn Lane, Earlswood (Hockley Heath), Stratford-on-Avon (3 Sept 2026) — approved. SHORTHAND: GB7(1)(g)(iii) passed in one sentence on LSV boundary with no TR3 route analysis; approved.
stratford-26-01764-PIPPittern Hill Riding School, Pittern Hill, Kineton, Stratford-on-Avon (25 Aug 2026) — approved. Main Rural Centre plus an asserted walking distance in a one-paragraph cross-check; approved.
C — the tier acknowledged, the location decided on the route
6006722Land off Drake Street, Welland, Malvern Hills (28 Sept 2026) — dismissed. Category 1 acknowledged, but site outside the boundary and bus "very limited"; label did not carry the location.
6006900Land at Rogers Lane, Findon, South Downs National Park Authority (18 Sept 2026) — dismissed. Service village expressly noted and set aside: unlit unpaved lane and A24 crossing = car reliance "irrespective of the precise distance" (¶17).
6009745Pine Lodge, Chilworth Drove, Chilworth, Test Valley (17 Aug 2026) — dismissed. Key Service Centre 500 m away acknowledged; unlit single-track lanes with no footway made occupiers "almost wholly dependent upon the car".
6009838Land on north side of Lodge Lane, Bolney, Mid Sussex (16 Sept 2026) — dismissed. Medium village with services acknowledged; S5(1)(j) "physically well-related" failed on form/gaps.
6011231Gravel Farm, 250 Gravel Lane, Banks, West Lancashire (15 Sept 2026) — allowed. Key Sustainable Village 1 km away acknowledged; continuous pavement but "limited access to local services" still a harm; allowed via another route.
APP-G2245-C-26-3377906Land south east of Oaklands, St Clere Hill Road, West Kingsdown, Sevenoaks (8 Sept 2026) — allowed. Service village noted; remoteness would fail general housing; allowed only via HO12 flexibility for traveller sites.
And the tier is used against sites far more often than for them
43 decisions cite a low tier, an unlisted village or a site outside the hierarchy against the proposal — more than twice the number that rely on a tier in its favour. Many route-decided dismissals carry no tier label at all even where the village is a named service centre; the inspectors went straight to TR3: 6006637 Hatton Station, 6007428 Halsall, 6008688 East Grinstead, 6009966 South Nutfield.
Before the 2026 Framework, three of four Council decisions on Claverdon reasoned “Category 3 Local Service Village with a shop, school, pub and surgery, so sustainable”; the fourth, 22/01896/FUL, called the same hinterland “an unsustainable location”.
All 170 decisions, grouped by how the tier was used
A2 · Tier used as the sustainability finding, no route analysis (6)
6007104Land adjacent to Cedar Cottage, Furners Lane, Henfield, Horsham (24 Aug 2026) — allowed
6007771Church View, Wilsthorpe Road, Braceborough, South Kesteven (17 Aug 2026) — dismissed
6008253Land East of College Road South, Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire (24 Sept 2026) — allowed
6010196Land at OS 7540 6621 Stourport Road, Great Witley (4 dwellings), Malvern Hills (18 Sept 2026) — dismissed
Claverdon is a Category 3 Local Service Village in Stratford's Core Strategy and is washed over by the Green Belt, so it is not a settlement as the NPPF defines it (Annex B). The site is outside the village's built-up area boundary, so the tier gives it no plan support either. Five houses north of Station Road stand or fall on the route east to the services and the station:
On the route
What is there
Footway
None on the site side of Station Road
Lighting
None on the eastward route
Traffic
40 mph limit from the village edge
Crossing
No formal crossing. The scheme offers a dropped kerb with tactile paving at the site frontage
Bus
Flexibus 510: one return journey, Wednesdays, on request
Train
Unstaffed request stop, no Sunday service
On the reasoning of Findon and Hatton Station, that is a car-reliant location, whatever Claverdon's place in the hierarchy. None of the allowed cases above had transport this thin: a Wednesday-only request bus and a request-stop station are not the "reasonable public transport" the Henfield and Aston Clinton inspectors recorded.
Expect the dropped kerb to be offered as the "planned improvement" that makes the location sustainable under TR3(1)(a), or as the connectivity enhancement TR3(1)(e) asks for. It is neither. It is access for the five dwellings: it serves no existing movement, so it enhances nothing for the area, and it leaves every deficiency on the route beyond it untouched. What inspectors have accepted under (e) is of a different order, such as the 20 mph order, traffic calming, bus shelters and crossing points secured at Chaldon. The kerb also tells against the scheme. It admits that every walk from the site begins by crossing an unlit 40 mph road, and the highway authority's audit review (8 September 2026, item 5.1) recommends "sufficient lighting be provided in this area to remove the dark spot around the pedestrian crossing point", while the ecology consultee asks that boundary hedgerows are "not illuminated (as far as possible)". The one improvement on offer needs a further improvement to be safe, and no document reconciles the two.
A plain-English note on planning policy and public appeal decisions, not legal advice. Quotations are checked against the source documents.