National Planning Policy Framework 2026 consultation: Browne Jacobson response

This response to the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has been prepared by Ben Standing and Will Thomas, partners in our planning team, and submitted to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government department as part of its public consultation.  

The NPPF sets out the UK Government's planning policies for England, acting as a framework for councils to create local plans and make development decisions. It also provides developers with an insight into how they can ensure new proposals receive planning approval. 

Following changes a year earlier, a new draft NPPF with more substantial amends was published on 16 December 2025, with a consultation running until 10 March 2026. 

We responded to selected questions across:

• Chapter 2: Plan-making policies.
• Chapter 3: Decision-making policies.
• Chapter 4: Achieving sustainable development.
• Chapter 19: Conserving and enhancing the natural environment.
• Annex A: Data centres and on-site energy generation.

Opening remarks

Development as a concept is in a difficult position, often caught between national policy objectives on housing delivery, and the perspectives of  local people.

Balancing these competing priorities is the greatest challenge of a successful planning system. Many residents oppose development because they believe it negatively impacts their communities and isn’t part of an overarching strategy that ultimately provides long-term benefits for their area.

Decisions on new housing locations can feel like a scatter-gun approach, with a sense that the necessary infrastructure upgrades aren’t co-ordinated or delivered in a timely fashion.

Updating public perceptions

The perception is that building a new school block, enhancing capacity at a GP practice or improving a road junction only seems to happen when a critical point is reached, and not planned in advance. Solving local issues is therefore felt to typically be a reactive, rather than proactive measure.

Meanwhile, local plans are often out of date and can be poorly understood. Residents often don’t seem to know what they aim to achieve, why it’s necessary and how it will support place-making strategies. As a result, local opposition can be intense at decision-making stages for both the local plan and individual planning applications.

Strong objections at every stage does not result in effective local planning – instead, it risks genuine concerns being lost in the quantity of other objections.

This is hugely frustrating for both developers and councils as planning becomes a highly emotive and politicised issue, creating an adversarial ‘Nimbyism’ narrative and ultimately delaying projects, which has a knock-on effect on costs and investor confidence. 

As a law firm that works with public and private sector clients, we are satisfied that the newly drafted NPPF goes some way to resolving many of these issues, although we have comments on practical implementation and other considerations.

Benefits of spatial development strategies 

We are particularly interested in the renewed focus on spatial development strategies, which we believe has benefits for developers, local authority planners and communities alike. Our reasons are as follows:

• Developers benefit from greater long-term certainty on where to build. This not only supports their own housebuilding strategies but also cost planning. This in turn reduces the cost risk inherent in the current ‘scheme led’ system, improving developer and promoter financial resilience and confidence. 

• Local authority planners gain because spatial planning strategies offer a clear sense of direction and a chance to deliver improved place-making at high level. This is currently one of the most challenging jobs in local government because of the controversy and politicisation that planning attracts in the absence of clear local and strategic policies.

• Communities will welcome the fact that new housing and development, even when opposed in principle, will at least be well thought out with strategic planning and early delivery of key social infrastructure. While many people currently feel that development is imposed on them, there is potential here to turn the narrative around that development can proactively help solve local issues via associated investment. 

NPPF consultation review

Below, we have answered some of the questions that we feel are most relevant to our clients and the planning work we are involved in. 

In addition to spatial development strategies, these include local plan-making and decision-making policies, comprising the variation of planning obligations and conditions for conserving and enhancing the natural environment, as well as developing data centres that will power the UK’s adoption of AI across the economy and public services.