Local plan reform and the thirty month plan making timetable

The local plan reform timetable in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 is built around a target of thirty months from starting a plan to adopting it, with three gateway assessments along the way and a set of National Development Management Policies carrying the generic policy that plans currently repeat. The Act provides the framework. The detail sits in regulations and in revised national guidance, and whether those provisions are in force is the first thing to check before relying on any of it.

For anyone promoting a site, the practical questions are which system the authority is working under, and what weight an emerging plan carries while it gets there.

Why plan making was reformed

Plans took too long, and too many authorities had none that was up to date. A plan that takes five or six years to adopt is out of date on its housing figures before it is examined, and the evidence base has to be refreshed mid process, which adds further delay.

Two other problems drove the reform. Plans repeat national policy at length, which wastes examination time on text nobody disputes. And the duty to cooperate produced binary outcomes at examination, where a plan could fail for a procedural reason after years of work.

The response was to shorten the process, take the generic policy out of plans and into a national set, replace the duty to cooperate with an alignment requirement, and introduce checkpoints during preparation rather than a single test at the end.

The stages in the new process

The intended shape is a shorter preparation period, a single formal consultation on the draft plan, examination, and adoption, with the whole sequence targeted at thirty months.

That target is an expectation set out in national policy and guidance rather than a duty on authorities with a sanction attached. Treat it as the direction of travel and as the basis on which authorities will set their published timetables, and expect slippage in the early plans through the new system while everyone learns it.

Alongside the plan itself sit two other instruments. Supplementary plans, which replace supplementary planning documents and carry more weight because they are examined. And design codes, which the reforms expect authorities to prepare for their whole area.

Gateway assessments and who carries them out

The gateways are the structural change that most affects how plans are put together. Instead of the plan being tested once, at examination, it is assessed at points during preparation, so that a problem with the evidence base or the approach is found while it can still be fixed.

The assessments are carried out independently of the authority rather than by the authority's own officers, and the intention is that the outcome is published. For a site promoter that publication matters, because a gateway report is an early, independent read on the soundness of the direction the plan is taking.

Check the current regulations for how many assessments apply, who carries them out and what is published, because that detail is set by secondary legislation rather than by the Act.

Plans already under way

Transitional arrangements decide which system an authority is working under, and they are the single most useful thing to establish at the start of a promotion.

The general shape of such arrangements is that plans reaching a defined stage by a defined date continue under the existing system, and everything else starts again under the new one. That creates a strong incentive for authorities to push plans over the line, and it also produces a cohort of authorities that withdrew a plan and started afresh.

Read the authority's Local Development Scheme, which sets out its published timetable, and read the most recent committee report on the plan. Between them they will tell you which system applies, what stage the plan has reached and whether the authority believes it will meet the transitional deadline.

Effect on housing land supply arguments

The interaction between plan status and decision taking is where this reaches applications. An authority with a recently adopted plan is in a different position from one whose plan is old or which has no plan at all, and the tests that apply to a supply argument differ accordingly.

Three things to establish before building a case on supply. The adoption date of the plan and therefore its age. The authority's current published position on housing land supply and how recently it was updated. And whether any transitional protection applies to that authority's plan.

Then read the current National Planning Policy Framework rather than a summary of it. The Framework has been reissued more than once, most recently in August 2026 with policy coded chapters in place of the old paragraph numbers, and an argument built on the numbering of a superseded edition will be taken apart. The planning law updates timeline is a place to follow the sequence of changes.

What applicants should watch for

Four practical points for anyone with a site in the system.

First, the weight given to an emerging plan still depends on the stage it has reached, the extent of unresolved objections and the degree of consistency with national policy. Gateway outcomes are new evidence in that assessment, so track them.

Second, where national development management policies take over a topic, a local policy saying the same thing carries no separate weight. Check whether the policy you are relying on, or arguing against, is one that national policy now covers.

Third, supplementary plans are examined, so they are harder to dismiss than the supplementary planning documents they replace. A parking standard or a design requirement in a supplementary plan is a stronger obstacle than the same wording in an old guidance note.

Fourth, evidence base documents produced for a plan are public and usable. A landscape sensitivity study, a strategic flood risk assessment or a housing needs study prepared for the plan is often the best available evidence for an individual application, and it is evidence the authority commissioned.

Illustrative example: a promoter tracking a district where the plan reached submission shortly before the transitional deadline. Because the plan continued under the existing system, the site allocation the promoter had argued for was examined on the original evidence, and the timetable held. Had the plan been withdrawn, the promotion would have restarted with a new call for sites and a new evidence base.

Checking the regulations position

Reform announced is not reform in force. Before relying on any part of this in a submission, check on legislation.gov.uk which provisions of the Act have been brought into force, check gov.uk for the current plan making guidance, and check the authority's own published timetable.

Say in the submission which position you have checked and when. An argument that rests on a provision that has not been brought into force is worse than no argument, and officers notice. Where the plan position is uncertain, the Planning Statement should set out the development plan situation as it stands rather than as it is expected to be, and deal with the emerging position separately.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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