Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill (“the Bill”) received Royal Assent on the 18 December 2025 which means we now have the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (“the Act”) which came into force on the same date.

The new Act is pivotal to the government’s plan for change. Namely, to slash delays and costs to ensure that homes and critical infrastructure are built faster, and to build 1.5 million homes and meet a 150-decisions target on major infrastructure. The Act has five key parts:-

Part 1. Infrastructure

Part 2. Planning

Part 3. Development and nature recovery

Part 4. Development corporations

Part 5. Compulsory purchase

Some of these provisions took effect immediately on Royal Assent (18 December 2025), others will come into force in February 2026 but many await commencement orders to bring them into force.

Holmes & Hills LLP have previously reported on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, following along with its proposals and the journey of the Bill as it made its way through Parliament. These previous articles can be found here:-

• Planning & Infrastructure Bill - April 2025 - Holmes & Hills Solicitors
• Planning & Infrastructure Bill - May 2025 - Holmes & Hills Solicitors
• Planning & Infrastructure Bill - June 2025 - Holmes & Hills Solicitors
• Planning Law Update 2025 - Holmes & Hills Solicitors

However, now that the Bill has become an Act, lets recap on (a non-exhaustive list) of the changes the Act brings into force.

Part 1. Infrastructure

Part 1 of the Act is hoped to provide a more streamlined process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (“NSIPs”). To achieve this the following provisions are introduced or changed by the Act:

• Nationally policy statements review – national policy statements provide policy guidance on how NSIP applications are to be prepared and determined. The Act requires that national policy statements are updated every 5 years to ensure they reflect the government’s priorities and ambition.
• Power to disapply requirement for development consent – the Act confers a power on the Secretary of State to direct that development consent it not required for a specified development, and direct the development project out of the NSIP regime on a case by case basis.
• Removal of certain pre-application requirements – the Act omits certain pre-application requirements for NSIPs. This is hoped to enable shorter and more concise reports for relevant proposals.
• Judicial review changes – the Act removes the requirement of a paper permission stage for judicial reviews of national policy statements or development consent orders, and such applications for permission shall be decided at an oral hearing. The Act also removes the right to appeal for cases deemed totally without merit at the oral permission hearing.

Part 1 of the Act also introduces changes to electricity infrastructure, and Highways infrastructure. The changes to Highways infrastructure are hoped to deliver a faster and more certain consenting process for transport infrastructure projects.

Part 2. Planning

Part 2 of the Act is hoped to ensure that decisions are being made in the right way and at the right level, to ensure that decision makers have adequate training and to create a more joined up planning system.

• Sub-delegation of planning fees – the Act confers a power for the Secretary of State to sub-delegate the setting of planning fees to a Local Planning Authority (“LPA”) with the requirement that planning fees must not exceed the cost to LPAs to determine that planning application and that the fee income must be retained for spending on the LPAs relevant planning function.
• Planning committee reforms - as a result of this legislation, committee members will also be required to undertake mandatory training, and hold a certificate valid for a prescribe period for such training, before they can take planning decisions. The Act also introduces requirements for the size and composition of a committee.
• Delegation of planning decisions – the Act introduces a two-tier national scheme of delegation that will set out which planning functions should be delegated to planning officers for a decision and which should go instead to a planning committee.
• Spatial development strategies – the Act enables the government to introduce a system of strategic planning across England by rolling out “the spatial development strategy” – this is closely modelled on the system that has been in place in London for over 20 years. It places a duty on authorities to prepare a spatial development strategy for their area. The spatial development strategy’s will have to specify the amount and distribution of housing (and affordable housing) across its area, embed climate change policies, address health issues and consider local natural recovery strategies, and identify strategic infrastructure requirements. The authorities will have to prepare a timetable for preparation of the strategic development strategy and agree this with the Secretary of State.

Part 3. Development and nature recovery

Part 3 of the Act strives to make the planning system more streamlined by giving developers a clear and simple way to discharge their environmental obligations. The Act establishes the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), an alternative approach for developers to meet certain environmental obligations relating to protected sites and species.

The idea is that Natural England will be required to prepare an “Environmental Delivery Plan” which would set out conservation measures to be carried out at a strategic level within an area. These measures would then be funded by the “Nature Restoration Fund” or Levy that is paid by developers.

Once an Environmental Delivery Plan is in place, a developer bringing forward a scheme in the affected area would, in most circumstances, have a choice. They could either commit to pay the Nature Restoration Levy for the development in which case the relevant restrictions on developments posed by the habitat regulations or the wildlife and countryside act would be disregarded; or continue under the current system in which they would need to provide site specific mitigation for their development proposals.

Part 4. Development Corporations

Development corporations are statutory bodies which can be set up under the New Towns Act 1981 for the purpose of urban development and regeneration. They are important vehicles for delivering large-scale and complex regeneration and development projects.

The Secretary of State already had the power to designate an area as the site of a proposed new town, but the Act widens these powers to enable greater flexibility for development corporations in terms of the variety, extent and types of the geographical areas over which they can operate. This will facilitate urban extension of existing towns as well as creating new towns.

The Act also requires that development corporations aim to contribute to the mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change.

Part 5. Compulsory purchase

The Act aims to improve the CPO process and enable more effective land acquisition by allowing statutory notices to be served electronically, simplifying information required to be included in newspaper notices, delegating more decisions and making changes to the loss payments regime. 

Loss payments are an additional amount paid to landowners for any inconvenience and disruption caused by the compulsory purchase. Similarly, home loss payments are an additional amount paid to a person displaced from their home as a result of a compulsory purchase. The Act provides that home loss payment may be excluded where a property owner has failed to comply with a notice or order served on them to make improvements to their land or properties. The governments position is that those whose neglect of a property has prompted a compulsory purchase order do not benefit from that neglect through a home loss payment.

The Act extends an existing power to remove value attributed to the prospect of planning permissions (“Hope Value”) to town, parish and community councils where they are using CPO powers to facilitate affordable or social housing provision. It will also be achieved by ensuring directions removing hope value apply to assessment of all open market value where it forms part of a compensation claim. 

These reforms could significantly reshape how planning decisions are made and funded across England while (hopefully) addressing long-standing barriers to housing delivery. It will be interesting to see how the Act will impact the current planning regime, and if its impact will indeed be a positive one.

However, if you have any questions about how the Act may impact you, please get in touch with our Planning Department here at Holmes & Hills.