UK's Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025: Planning Aspects

What's the Background?

The UK government wants to remove blockages and delays in the planning system, accelerating the construction of tens of thousands of new homes across every region and the building of critical infrastructure. After a nine-month passage through the Houses of Parliament, the Act has now passed, introducing (in the government's words) "seismic planning reforms".

What are the Key Changes Introduced by the Act?

Local planning authorities ("LPAs") will be able to set their own fees. Currently, planning application fees are set by central government through regulations, so all LPAs charge the same fees.

It is widely acknowledged that LPAs are under-resourced. The Act will allow LPAs to set their own fees to recover all of the costs they incur on applications, subject to some oversight by the secretary of state who might (for example) intervene if he felt the fees were too high.

Developers can therefore expect application fees to rise from a date still to be confirmed. In theory, this should hopefully result in better-resourced LPAs who are able to make timely decisions. However, there is no direct mechanism linking any fee increase to improved performance.

It will be interesting to see the approach different LPAs take. LPAs which are keen to attract development to their areas may choose to impose more modest fee increases than their neighbours.

National schemes of delegation and training will apply. Each LPA has its own scheme of delegation in its constitution, so there is variation between LPAs as to which (and how many) planning applications they delegate to their planning officers to decide and which decisions they take to their planning committees (which are made up of locally elected councillors).

The government will impose a standardised scheme of delegation on all LPAs, with regulations to be made which will limit the types of applications that can be taken to planning committees. The intention is to increase the number of delegated decisions taken by the LPAs' professionally trained planning officers, with fewer decisions being taken to planning committees.

Committee members will also be required to undergo formal training in planning and to obtain a certificate evidencing this, before they can sit on the planning committee. The detail of that training is to be set out in regulations. If a committee member breaches this requirement, it will not invalidate any decision taken by the committee, though.

These moves will be welcomed by developers as they are likely to speed up decision-making, provide certainty and encourage more informed decisions.

Extensions of time for implementing planning permissions because of legal challenges. If a planning permission is subject to judicial review challenge by a third party, there will be statutory extensions of time to the deadline for implementing that planning permission. There would be a one-year extension for High Court proceedings, with a further year if the case proceeds to the Court of Appeal and a further two years if the case proceeds to the Supreme Court. This law comes into effect on 18 February 2026.

How developers compensate for environmental impacts. The Act will allow developers to pay a nature restoration levy instead of directly mitigating some environmental impacts that would arise due to their project.

Natural England ("NE") will prepare "an environmental delivery plan" ("EDP") for a specific geographic area and types of development, to apply for up to 10 years, with the EDP setting out: the environmental features that are likely to be negatively affected by the development; the conservation measures that are to be taken by or on behalf of NE to protect those features; the amount of the levy payable by developers to cover the cost of those measures; and the environmental obligations in relation to development that are discharged, disapplied or otherwise modified if a developer pays the nature restoration levy in relation to the development.

The secretary of state would then make the EDP if he considers that the EDP passes the overall improvement test—i.e., that by the EDP end date, the effect of the conservation measures will materially outweigh the negative effect of the EDP development on the conservation status of each identified environmental feature.

Where an EDP is in place, a developer will be able to pay the levy to offset potential adverse environmental impacts of its development. If the developer has committed to pay the levy, the environmental impact on protected sites (under the Habitats Regulations 2017) and on protected species (under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981) would be disregarded in the planning process. So there would be no need for the developer to carry out an appropriate assessment (under the Habitats Regulations) or to obtain a species licence under the Habitats Regulations or the 1981 Act.

Developers will need to pay the levy to a timetable agreed with NE, for instance, once development has begun.

Looking Ahead

While the Act will be welcomed by many in the development industry, most of the changes have not yet come into force, and the details underpinning much of the Act have not yet been published and will follow by way of regulations over the coming months. Developers should seek to monitor the situation and assess what the new regime may mean for their projects.