Wales: Future Wales and the development plan hierarchy

This article is about Wales. The statutory development plan in Wales has three tiers, and the top one is unusual: Future Wales, the national plan to 2040, is itself part of the development plan rather than a statement of national policy sitting above it. An applicant in Wales therefore cites Future Wales in the same breath as the Local Development Plan, under the plan-led duty in section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.

That is structurally different from England, where national policy and the development plan are separate things and the plan tier below the local plan is the neighbourhood plan. Treating a Welsh application as an English one with the place names changed is the quickest way to lose credibility with a Welsh case officer.

Future Wales as part of the development plan

The Planning (Wales) Act 2015 created the framework. It required a National Development Framework for Wales, enabled Strategic Development Plans, and retained Local Development Plans, and it brought the national tier inside the definition of the development plan.

Future Wales: The National Plan 2040 was published in February 2021 as the first plan under that power. It sets a spatial strategy, identifies national and regional growth areas, and carries numbered policies on growth and regeneration, infrastructure, energy, ecological networks and the distribution of development.

The national growth areas are the places the plan directs the largest share of growth: Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys; Swansea Bay and Llanelli; and Wrexham and Deeside. Regional growth areas sit below them, and the plan's spatial approach for mid Wales and the rural west is deliberately different in kind rather than simply smaller in scale.

Two drafting consequences follow. A Welsh planning statement should cite Future Wales policies by number as development plan policy, with the February 2021 publication date. And where a proposal aligns with a Future Wales growth strategy, that alignment carries development plan weight rather than merely national policy support.

Strategic Development Plans and who prepares them

The middle tier was designed for issues that cross authority boundaries: housing distribution, strategic employment land, transport and minerals.

Responsibility for preparing Strategic Development Plans now sits with the Corporate Joint Committees established under the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, covering North Wales, Mid Wales, South West Wales and South East Wales. Each has a statutory strategic planning function alongside its transport and economic wellbeing duties.

Plan preparation takes years, and as at October 2026 the position should be checked rather than assumed, because a region with an emerging plan at examination is in a materially different position from one at evidence-gathering stage. Check the relevant Corporate Joint Committee's own published timetable, and note the stage reached, because an emerging Strategic Development Plan carries weight according to its progress in the same way an emerging plan does anywhere.

Local Development Plans and their cycle

Wales has 25 local planning authorities, including three National Park authorities. Each prepares a Local Development Plan covering its area, and the plans are the tier that allocates sites and sets detailed development management policies.

The review cycle is statutory. An authority must undertake a full review of its plan at least every four years, and the review report then determines whether a short-form or a full revision follows. Some authorities have moved to joint plans covering more than one area.

For a consultant this matters in a specific way. A Local Development Plan more than four years past adoption without a published review report is vulnerable, and the degree to which its housing policies remain up to date becomes an argument in its own right. Check the adoption date, the review report date and the current revision stage before citing any policy as current.

Resolving conflict between the tiers

Conflict is resolved by hierarchy rather than by date, which is the opposite of the English default.

Planning Policy Wales and the amended statutory framework provide that where there is a conflict between the tiers, the plan higher in the hierarchy prevails. So Future Wales takes precedence over a Strategic Development Plan, and a Strategic Development Plan takes precedence over a Local Development Plan.

In practice genuine conflict is rarer than apparent conflict, and an officer will usually read the tiers together before concluding that one displaces another. Where you do rely on the hierarchy, set out the specific policies said to conflict and explain the inconsistency rather than asserting precedence in general terms. Scotland uses a different structure again, as set out in our note on the hierarchy of developments in Scotland, and Northern Ireland differs again, as covered in the two-tier planning system in Northern Ireland.

Where Planning Policy Wales fits

Planning Policy Wales is national policy, and it is not part of the development plan. The current edition is Edition 11, published in February 2021 alongside Future Wales.

Its organising idea is placemaking, and it operates within the sustainable development duty under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which gives Welsh policy a vocabulary that English policy does not share. Technical Advice Notes sit beneath it, covering design, nature conservation, noise, the historic environment, flooding and coastal erosion and other topics, and they carry the detailed tests an officer applies.

So the citation discipline is: Future Wales and the Local Development Plan as development plan policy, Planning Policy Wales and the relevant Technical Advice Note as national policy and guidance, and the Well-being of Future Generations duty where the argument engages it. Check the current edition and the current status of any Technical Advice Note before relying on it, because several have been revised or replaced since 2021.

Citing the hierarchy in a planning statement

Structure the policy section to the hierarchy rather than by topic, at least at the outset.

1. Identify each tier that applies to the site, with document titles and dates.
2. Set out the relevant Future Wales policies by number and explain the proposal's relationship to the spatial strategy.
3. Deal with any Strategic Development Plan, stating its stage and the weight claimed.
4. Set out the Local Development Plan policies, with the adoption date and the review position.
5. Then address Planning Policy Wales and the Technical Advice Notes as policy and guidance.
6. Conclude on section 38(6): whether the proposal accords with the development plan as a whole.

A Planning Statement built that way reads as a Welsh document, and it answers the question the officer has to answer in their report. Community-led plans add a further layer in Scotland but not in Wales, a distinction covered in local place plans in Scotland.

What an England-grounded draft needs checked

PlanScope's drafting is grounded in English national policy and English local plans. For a Welsh application that means the policy framework has to be substituted rather than adjusted, and the reviewer has to check it.

Three substitutions are not optional. Replace national framework references with Future Wales policy numbers and Planning Policy Wales. Replace English practice guidance references with the relevant Technical Advice Note. And check the permitted development position separately, because the Welsh order differs from the English one in both drafting and limits.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which supporting documents your scheme is likely to need, and have a Welsh planning professional confirm the policy framework before submission.

This is general guidance, not legal advice: check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.