The best opportunities often appear at the least convenient times. At present, the UK economy
isn’t exactly booming, and the property markets are generally stagnant. No-one has a great deal of
money to splash around. However, now is exactly the time to take advantage of what may well turn
out to be once-in-a-generation opportunities.
Planning certainly isn’t easy, and it’s getting progressively more complex and expensive. However,
whatever view you take generally of the achievements or otherwise of the Labour Government, it
introduced some radical changes that have opened up major opportunities that we could only
dream about during the previous long drawn out years of localism, NIMBY politics and complacency.
- Grey Belt
- Mandatory housing targets
- Enforcing the tilted balance
- Lifting of the moratorium on onshore wind
- Major loosening of the NSIP regime
- AI Growth Zones, and data centres as critical national infrastructure
These have all had a big impact, even in the space of just two years (or less, given the NPPF was
only radically updated in December 2024).
We now – as of August 2026 – have the latest version of the NPPF. It goes even further, including:
- Default “yes” to development within settlements
- Development outside settlements where there is evidenced unmet need
- Presumption in favour of major housing development close to scores of railway stations
- The ability to run a viability argument even on Grey Belt land
- Raised thresholds for statutory consultees
Furthermore, there are other measures:
- Lower threshold (150 homes) for ministerial call-in
- Call-in powers for regional mayors
- Small site exemptions from BNG
- More realism over the burden of affordable housing
- Nature Restoration Fund (shortly)
- Fewer planning applications to be determined at Committee (shortly)
It is now possible to secure planning permission for things that which it has not been possible to
achieve within living memory, and landowners and developers need to be alert to this.
There’s no doubt the process is expensive. Fee budgets for major schemes can run well into seven
figures. However, once you have planning permission, your land is immediately likely to be worth
much more. Furthermore, if things are properly structured, it is usually possible to make a
technical start on development at modest cost, and thus effectively make the planning permission
perpetual.
But time is not on the developer’s or landowner’s side. We can only speculate about the outcome of
the next general election, but it is likely that the liberating measures noted above will not survive
a change in political direction. A Government dominated by the left is likely to want to err on the
side of protecting the environment and extracting excessive development value from whatever is
permitted. One dominated by the right is likely to retreat into populism, and let the NIMBYs
reclaim the roost.
We don’t know when the next general election will be either, but it is probably reasonable to
assume it won’t be before the end of 2028. The intervening period of 28 months is long enough to
prepare even a major scheme, take it through the local planning system, and (if necessary) take it
through an appeal. The time will soon pass, so there is no time to lose.
And if anyone needed added incentives, planning application fees are due to go up again in
December, and very probably yet again sometime next year when some local authorities try to take
advantage of a new ability to charge a 30% premium. Furthermore, the emergency affordable
housing arrangements in London (effectively reducing the default percentage from 35% to 20%)
have a hard end-stop date of 31 March 2028.
Now is the time to act.
