Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and the Act marks a significant step in reshaping the planning landscape in England and Wales. Set to implement a series of wide-ranging reforms, the Act aims to streamline the planning process, enhance infrastructure delivery, and promote sustainable development, particularly in house building and ‘critical infrastructure’. In this article, we explore the key reforms introduced by the Act and the potential impacts on developers, local authorities, communities, and the environment. In a separate article, Kheng Chau explores the procedures being put into place by Part 3 of the Act and how they will affect the relationship between house-building and the natural environment.

Planning committee reforms

Presently, planning applications are determined either by a planning committee (or some other nomenclature such as planning board, planning sub-committee, strategic planning committee and such like) or at officer level (in accordance with delegated authority to appointed officers pursuant to the council’s particular scheme of delegation). For completeness, in cases of non-determination, proposals are decided on appeal by Planning Inspectors (though this procedure is outside the remit of this note). The Act will enable the Government to introduce, by regulations, a national scheme of delegation that would identify the circumstances where planning applications are to be determined by planning committee and which planning applications are to be determined at officer level.  The thinking behind this change is to streamline the determination process so that planning committee should only be engaged in high-level strategic planning applications. Planning committee members will also be required to undertake mandatory training before they can take sit on a planning committee to ensure the planning law is ‘understood’ thereby protecting the integrity of the outcome. It is currently unclear what form the training will take, but one imagines something akin to certificated CPD courses. The Government argues that officers taking decisions instead of planning committees would create ‘certainty’ and be more ‘efficient’.

Critics say that this removes democratic accountability from planning decisions and effectively takes decisions out of the hands of elected councillors but the government has countered that with a statement that democratic accountability should be delivered through the local plan rather than individual planning decisions.

Local fee setting

Currently, application fees for planning are set at a national level by secondary legislation , but the Government argues they do not always cover the full cost of determining planning applications, which can vary between authorities. The Act, therefore, provides the Government with the power to enable Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to set their own fees to cover the full costs of processing applications. The Government says that the fees must be ring-fenced to cover planning costs and not used to deliver other services or functions.  This will lead to developers having to pay more as LPAs will certainly increase their fees but, on the plus-side, might lead to LPAs being better resourced and so planning applications being processed faster.

Spatial development

Currently, most of England is not covered by strategic plans outside of Greater London. The Act will require LPAs to prepare long term Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs) for their areas and even enables the Government to establish “strategic planning boards” on behalf of LPAs, presumably if it is not satisfied with the LPA’s efforts. A local plan will also have to be in conformity  with the SDS for that area. Adopted SDSs will form part of the LPA’s development plan and so planning applications must be determined in accordance with them.

The Government hopes this will speed up building by requiring LPAs to work together more closely with regard to planning, particularly in green belt areas and countryside. The Mayor of London will continue to prepare the SDS for London under the provisions of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 so this reform will likely have minimal impact on the capital.

An amendment in the House of Lords to require the prioritisation of brownfield sites was rejected by the House of Commons, which probably gives a sense of the government’s development and planning priorities and which direction future regulations might head.

Development Corporations

The Government has made ‘New Towns’ a theme of its housing policy. The Act will therefore give the government the ability to make regulations to increase the power of Development Corporations to direct development. The government has argued that transport infrastructure is vital to enable the building of houses in the right places, and the Act includes the ability of the government to provide powers to Development Corporations to direct the building of transport infrastructure.

Nationally Significant Infrastructure

The Act also provides changes to the consent process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) under the Planning Act 2008. NSIPs  include infrastructure such as power stations, airports, railways, highways and reservoirs, among others projects, and these require approval by the Secretary of State by the grant of a Development Consent Order (DCO). The idea behind NSIPs is to speed up the approval process for infrastructure regarded as being nationally important, although as we have seen with the Lower Thames Crossing and the A303 improvements, development of these projects can still be glacially slow and expensive. The Act will require the Government to provide updated National Policy Statements – which are used to provide policy guidance on how NSIP applications are prepared and decided –  every  five years so that they reflect the Government’s ‘priorities and ambitions’. Parliament will also be able to consider changes to National Policy Statements outside the regular five year updates in order to reflect legislative changes, policy decisions and court cases.

The Act removes the statutory requirement to consult as part of the pre-application stage of DCOs so promoters of NSIPs are no longer legally required to carry out a consultation with affected individuals, statutory bodies and the local community. Developers will still need to provide public notice through national newspapers and ‘best practice’ regarding the pre-application stage will be set out by the Secretary of State through regulations in due course.

The Act will also enable developers to opt out of the DCO process, subject to the Secretary of State’s approval, if they can show that an alternative regime to provide consent would be more effective. Currently, due to their size, importance and complexity, NSIPs require approval by the relevant Secretary of State rather than at a local level. The Act removes the distinction between material and non-material changes to granted DCOs in order to create a unified process. This process will likely be amended through regulations, with the details currently unclear. Again, this is seemingly an attempt to speed up and simplify the consent process but much of the actual effect will depend on the regulations which follow.

Access to private land

The Act will also amend the process for developers to access land to conduct surveys for development purposes. Following the entry into force of  section 11 of the Act which amends the Planning Act 2008, developers are  able to gain entry onto private land (so long as they are an ‘authorised person’ under the definition of the Act) in order to conduct surveys in connection with a DCO. An ‘authorised person’ for the purposes of the Act is anyone authorised in writing by a person who has made or proposes to make an application for a DCO or has already been granted consent under an order. This power mirrors the existing approach in the Housing and Planning Act 2016. If they are prevented from accessing land, they can seek a warrant from the magistrates’ court. The right can also be used by those authorised by Natural England in connection with Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs).

Legal challenges

The Act aims to limit the number of legal challenges against major infrastructure projects to one attempt for cases deemed ‘totally without merit’ and the Act has removed altogether the requirement for a paper permission stage for judicial review of DCOs and NSIPs.

Conclusion

The Government has said that the Act is a ‘landmark’ and a ‘seismic’ reform of planning law. However, while much of the detail will become clearer with the passing of regulations and secondary legislation, it appears at first glance to be something of a missed opportunity. It does not appear likely, on the surface, that the Act will have any more success in limiting the perceived “blocks” to planning and infrastructure development than did the Planning Act 2008, at least without wholesale reform in areas of human rights law and associated judicial review, which might actually provide substantive limits to legal challenge. As we have already mentioned, much of the detail in the Act will be introduced through regulations laid before Parliament, so whether the Act is effective in meeting its aims will depend on the detail of the regulations. We will keep you updated and provide more substantive detail on the Act as things develop.

If you require further assistance with planning law, please contact our experienced Planning Partners, Kheng Chau or Kate Jardine.