Planning Reform in 2026: What Changed, and What It Means Before You Buy a Site

Six months into 2026, the shape of English planning reform is clear. For anyone deciding whether to commit to a site, the changes matter less as headlines and more as inputs to a go, fix or walk decision. Here is what has actually landed, and what it means upstream of an application. Every date and figure below is drawn from the relevant government source as at 16 July 2026.

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025. Among other things it introduces Environmental Delivery Plans and a Nature Restoration Levy, and provides the framework under which several of this year's changes are being made. It is the spine that the committee, consultation and infrastructure reforms hang from.

From 31 October 2026, a national scheme of delegation comes into force, made under the 2025 Act and pushed back from a proposed 30 September to give authorities time to adjust. It sets nationally which categories of decision are delegated to officers rather than taken by committee. The practical effect is that a technically clean, well-evidenced application is worth more, and advocacy in the committee room is worth less. The Secretary of State must review the regulations by 31 October 2028.

On 16 July the government launched a six-week consultation on extending judicial review reforms beyond nationally significant infrastructure to major housing, transport and energy schemes. Separately, mandatory pre-application consultation for nationally significant infrastructure projects is being removed, which the government estimates could cut up to 12 months from the process and save industry around £1 billion this Parliament. The context is delivery: 392,400 homes since the start of this Parliament, against a 1.5 million target.

From 23 March 2026, local planning authorities must consult the Secretary of State before refusing planning permission for housing schemes of 150 or more dwellings. For larger residential schemes, a local refusal is no longer the end of the conversation.

The Planning Inspectorate's figures published on 23 April 2026 show the median appeal decision time down to 18 weeks, from 21, with 19,617 appeal decisions in the year to March 2026 and 32 per cent of section 78 appeals allowed. A faster route with a one-in-three success rate changes the calculation after a refusal, and rewards a well-evidenced case. We look at that in more detail in how the refusal calculus changed in 2026.

The government has confirmed a new area-based exemption from biodiversity net gain for sites of 0.2 hectares or below, in its April 2026 response on minor, medium and brownfield development. Biodiversity net gain will also apply to nationally significant infrastructure projects from November 2026. The exact commencement date for the small-site exemption should be confirmed against the commencement regulations before it is relied on.

Several Planning Practice Guidance topics were updated across 2026, including Community Infrastructure Levy on 17 June, Build to Rent on 8 May, Enforcement and post-permission matters on 6 May, Determining a planning application on 8 April and Appeals on 2 April. The National Planning Policy Framework remains the December 2024 version; a revised framework has been consulted on but not yet published.

Local government reorganisation will streamline 134 councils into 38 unitary authorities, with a further 14 areas confirmed on 16 July 2026. For a landowner or developer, the authority that plans for and determines a site may not be the one that does so today.

The common thread is that the system is getting faster and more evidence-led, and the decision point is moving upstream. When consent is quicker and refusals are quicker to challenge, the expensive mistake is no longer a slow process. It is the wrong site, or the right site with the wrong strategy. That is the decision we help clients make before they commit to land, architects, planners or surveys.

This article is our interpretation of published government sources. It is not legal advice.