Three Legislative Changes Every Developer Should Know About

The summer of 2026 has brought a new Prime Minister, a draft London Plan and a delayed NPPF – but quietly, three pieces of legislation have either recently come into force or are imminent that will materially affect how planning applications are made, assessed and determined across England. None of them have attracted the headlines of Burnham’s housing announcements, but for developers and landowners working in the market day to day, they matter just as much.

Biodiversity Net Gain: Small Site Exemption

Mandatory BNG has been with us since February 2024, requiring most development to demonstrate a 10% net gain in biodiversity value. The principle is sound and broadly supported, but two years of implementation have made clear that the system creates disproportionate cost and delay for smaller schemes – sites where the ecological baseline is often limited and the cost of assessment can be significant relative to the value of the development.

From 31 July 2026, secondary legislation introduces a new exemption for development sites of 0.2 hectares or below. In practical terms this removes the mandatory BNG requirement from a substantial proportion of minor residential applications – estimated at close to half of all householder and small site submissions. For SME developers and self-builders working on infill and backland sites, this is a genuinely useful simplification that reduces professional fees, speeds up the pre-application process and removes one of the more unpredictable variables from viability assessments on smaller schemes.

The wider BNG framework remains unchanged for larger sites, and the 10% net gain requirement continues to apply to medium and major development. The off-site credit market is also developing, giving developers on more constrained sites greater flexibility in how they meet their obligations. BNG for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects follows separately in November 2026.

Planning Application Fees: A More Fundamental Shift Ahead

The 3.8% CPI increase that took effect in April 2026 is well understood. Less well publicised is the more fundamental reform now in train following a government consultation that closed in May 2026.

The government published its response in July 2026 and the direction is clear: fees are going up, more significantly than any annual CPI adjustment. The proposed new National Default Fee Schedule is based on recovering 90% of the estimated true cost of processing applications – a figure that reflects the longstanding gap between fee income and actual LPA expenditure, estimated at around £330 million annually. That gap has contributed directly to the resourcing pressures and determination delays that have frustrated developers for years.

The government intends to bring forward fee increase regulations in the summer with a view to these coming into force before the end of 2026, subject to Parliamentary approval. A second set of regulations covering the structural reform of the fee system – including a local fee variation model that would allow LPAs to set fees above the national default – will follow separately, also targeted before the end of the year. A further consultation on a planning fee surcharge is also planned.

For developers and landowners, the practical message is straightforward: fee budgets for applications in 2027 and beyond will need to be revisited. The increases are likely to be material across most application types. The silver lining – if LPA resourcing genuinely improves as a result – would be faster, more consistent determination. Whether that follows in practice remains to be seen.

National Scheme of Delegation: October 2026

From 31 October 2026, the way planning applications are allocated between officers and planning committees will change fundamentally across England. The National Scheme of Delegation, introduced through the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and implemented via regulations laid before Parliament on 1 June 2026, removes the ability of individual LPAs to set their own delegation arrangements and replaces them with a single, nationally consistent framework.

Applications are divided into two categories. Schedule 1 applications – including householder development, minor commercial, minor residential and prior approvals – must be determined by officers and cannot lawfully go to committee. Schedule 2 applications are delegated to officers as the default but can be referred to committee in defined circumstances, decided jointly by the chief planning officer and the nominated committee chair. The scope for ward members to call in applications is significantly curtailed.

Committees themselves are also being reformed. The cap of 13 members will apply from the same date, and mandatory training for committee members is introduced. Councils that continue to send Schedule 1 applications to committee after 31 October risk those decisions being challenged by judicial review.

From a developer’s perspective, the intent is welcome: routine, policy-compliant applications should move more quickly through the system without being caught up in committee cycles driven by local political pressures rather than planning merit. The risk, as always, is in the transition – LPAs are having to rewrite their constitutions, designate gatekeepers and embed new processes by October, which is a tight timetable. Some disruption in the short term seems likely before the benefits of a more consistent system are felt.

Planning Insight is monitoring all three of these changes closely. If you have a live application, a scheme in preparation, or a site you are considering promoting, we would be happy to advise on how these changes affect your position.