Local Growth Plan guidance revises social value advice

England’s Local Growth Plan guidance has been revised on social value, with implications for regional investment and development partnerships.

The Government updated its Local Growth Plan guidance on 9th October 2026, revising the section dealing with social value. The change concerns how England’s mayoral strategic authorities should consider wider benefits when developing regional growth plans and working with local authorities, partners and public-sector purchasers.

Section 7.2 now places social outcomes alongside economic value, including the potential to reduce socio-economic inequalities. It also connects local and regional growth priorities to the existing National Procurement Policy Statement and encourages authorities to align their social value strategies with their growth plans.

This is a guidance update, not a new planning permission, statutory local-plan policy or commencement of fresh planning legislation. Its immediate relevance is to the way public bodies frame investment programmes, procure delivery partners and connect housing and infrastructure projects with wider local benefits. The revised wording is England-only.

What changed in the Local Growth Plan guidance?

The official GOV.UK change history identifies a specific alteration on 9th October: section 7.2, headed Social Value. That matters when interpreting the update. The Government did not announce a new set of regional priorities on that date, replace England’s National Planning Policy Framework or approve a new development scheme.

The revised section encourages mayoral strategic authorities to consider how their Local Growth Plans can deliver social value as well as economic returns. It mentions reducing socio-economic inequalities and working with local partners, including organisations able to help design, deliver and monitor interventions.

It also says contracting authorities, as defined by the Procurement Act 2023, should secure social and economic value supporting the national missions, taking account of priorities in local and regional growth plans where available. Mayoral and constituent authorities are encouraged to align existing social value statements and strategies with their Local Growth Plan wherever possible.

The distinction between encouraging authorities to consider an outcome and creating a compulsory planning requirement is essential. The guidance does not provide a new development-management refusal reason, require every private planning application to offer a fixed community-benefit package or automatically make a Local Growth Plan part of the statutory development plan.

Why social value matters to public development projects

Social value is a broad idea, but its practical effects need to be specific. A housing or regeneration programme might combine homes and commercial floorspace with access to jobs, skills, transport connections and community facilities. An infrastructure programme could consider whether nearby places benefit from better access, resilience or employment opportunities.

Those are possible outcomes, not a list of new compulsory obligations under the October guidance. For a project involving public land or funding, the authority should distinguish benefits generated by the development itself from additional commitments made by a contractor, investor or delivery partner.

The existing National Procurement Policy Statement is relevant where a public body procures goods, works or services. Procurement rules govern how contracting authorities purchase and evaluate those offers; planning law separately governs development proposals, material considerations and planning obligations. They overlap in practice but cannot simply be substituted for one another.

For example, a proposed construction training programme might have procurement relevance and provide a genuine local benefit. That does not mean it may automatically be demanded through a planning condition or section 106 agreement. Any planning obligation still needs to meet the applicable legal and policy tests. Likewise, adopting a regional growth objective does not dispense with environmental assessments or the requirement to secure consent.

Local Growth Plan guidance and the investment pipeline

The wider Government document explains why the updated social value section can matter beyond procurement teams. Local Growth Plans are intended as 10-year regional economic strategies prepared by mayoral strategic authorities. They draw together economic evidence, shared priorities agreed with central government and an investment pipeline.

The investment pipeline guidance suggests identifying four to ten opportunities significant enough to unlock wider growth. Projects should be credible, with attention to deliverability, private investment, funding requirements and the practical barriers that could prevent implementation.

For development sites, the document specifically encourages clarity about planning status: whether land is identified in a local plan or proposed spatial strategy, whether permission exists, and what enabling infrastructure or regulatory work is still needed. That is a useful discipline for investors. An attractive project in a regional prospectus is not necessarily a consented development.

It also discusses the different roles of Homes England, the National Wealth Fund, local government pension fund asset pools and other public institutions in preparing investable projects. These organisations do not all make planning decisions; their role may be funding, advice, investment or coordination.

Introducing a stronger social value narrative should therefore improve the evidence supporting an investment proposition, not replace its viability appraisal, planning application, infrastructure programme or funding case. A proposal promising jobs but lacking a credible grid connection or road-access solution remains exposed to delivery risk.

How growth plans connect with spatial planning

Local Growth Plans are not interchangeable with the statutory Local Plan prepared by a local planning authority. The Government wants the economic strategy to guide related regional policies, including future Spatial Development Strategies, while the development-plan and local-plan process continues to have its own legal requirements.

The guidance envisages Spatial Development Strategies addressing housing needs, economic growth, infrastructure, environmental protection and climate resilience. It describes them as a spatial expression of the regional growth agenda, rather than merely a catalogue of possible investment projects.

For planning applicants, the critical questions remain which documents have actually been adopted or otherwise acquired legal weight, which development-plan policies apply and whether a specific proposal has obtained the necessary approval. The October amendment to the social value section does not itself allocate land, change Green Belt boundaries or grant permitted development rights.

For strategic authorities, however, inconsistency between economic priorities, proposed spatial strategies and the infrastructure pipeline can make delivery harder. The revised emphasis on local social outcomes gives another reason to explain who benefits from growth, how that benefit will be delivered and how it could be monitored.

What existing mayoral priorities reveal

The Government’s agreed shared priorities provide concrete context for the new wording. They were not newly agreed on 9th October. The GOV.UK history records that this list was added in July 2025 and extended for Hull and East Yorkshire in May 2026.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough’s priorities recognise pressure on the availability and affordability of housing and commercial sites, as well as planning capacity, water supply, energy connections and other infrastructure constraints. Those are examples of the practical delivery issues a Local Growth Plan can try to address.

Liverpool City Region’s existing housing priority includes work towards a Spatial Development Strategy and a coordinated housing pipeline. Planning Geek has separately reported the city region’s Place Delivery Agreement with Homes England, illustrating how regional priorities can become the basis for delivery partnerships.

Hull and East Yorkshire’s priorities address energy infrastructure, flood and coastal resilience, environmental constraints and east-west transport links. The region’s Homes England partnership is another example of coordinated delivery, but neither the partnership nor the shared priorities should be mistaken for individual site permissions.

These contrasting examples help explain why a single standardised definition of social value would be blunt. The locally important outcome might be affordable housing near jobs, a more resilient flood-risk strategy, better public transport access or improved training opportunities. What matters is that claims are measurable and linked to a deliverable programme.

What developers and planning authorities should check

Promoters of projects seeking mayoral support or public investment should first check whether the project matches a published regional priority and whether that priority is reflected in the relevant local planning policy or emerging spatial strategy. The answer may not be the same across the region.

Second, identify the planning and infrastructure dependencies. That includes land ownership, permissions, necessary environmental work, transport capacity, water and power availability, programme dates and any outstanding funding decisions. Government guidance expects development opportunities to present a credible route to delivery, not simply a headline development value.

Third, where social value is put forward, describe the intended beneficiaries, what is actually promised, which organisation will deliver it and how performance will be monitored. If the proposed benefit is tied to a public contract, examine the procurement documents; if it is proposed as a planning obligation, test it against the planning framework instead.

Finally, distinguish what is presently agreed from what remains aspirational. The existence of a Local Growth Plan or a shared priority may support a strategic case for investment. It is not evidence that a particular application has been approved, that a compulsory purchase order has been made or that central government has committed money for an individual project.

What happens after the 9th October update?

The revised Local Growth Plan guidance applies to England. Planning policy and local-government structures in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland must be assessed under their own frameworks; this update does not impose the same regional-planning arrangements on those nations.

Mayoral authorities and their partners now have a clearer official reference for incorporating social value into growth strategy and public delivery programmes. The next substantive development will be the publication or revision of individual plans, funded delivery packages or planning decisions. Each will need its own evidence and its own procedural status before being described as an approved scheme.

Related Planning Geek reporting: the West Midlands Futures Fund’s development call shows one practical route through which regional priorities, investment readiness and local outcomes may be considered together.