New Welsh infrastructure guidance has set out how developers should work with public bodies before, during and after applications for significant infrastructure projects. The Welsh Government published seven linked guides on 16th October 2026, covering environmental, heritage, agricultural land, common land, major-hazard and nuclear regulation.
The package applies to the Welsh significant infrastructure project regime, where the Welsh Ministers decide large-scale proposals through an Infrastructure Consent Order. It is aimed mainly at applicants, but it also tells communities and advisers which organisations may become involved and what evidence those bodies are likely to expect.
This Welsh infrastructure guidance does not create a fresh consent regime or announce a decision on any individual project. Its practical importance is that it brings the roles of several consultees into one framework and repeatedly tells applicants to engage early, resolve issues before submission and budget for advice that may be charged at full cost.
What the Welsh infrastructure guidance covers
The main significant infrastructure guidance collection now includes a general page on working with public bodies and separate pages for Natural Resources Wales, the Health and Safety Executive, the Office for Nuclear Regulation, Cadw and other heritage bodies, the Welsh Government Land Quality Advice Service and the Common Land Team.
The general guide says applicants must identify the relevant bodies and obtain the input needed for a high-quality application. It puts the responsibility plainly: “Applicants are responsible for engaging with relevant public bodies.”
That engagement is expected to start before the formal application. Public bodies can help identify constraints, agree surveys, define environmental assessment work and explain the documents needed for a valid submission. Formal consultation remains important, but the guidance says discussions should continue where a response identifies unresolved matters.
Once an application is accepted, Planning and Environment Decisions Wales will usually lead further consultation. Public bodies should avoid raising new issues at that stage without a substantive reason why they were not identified earlier. During examination, their evidence may be given in writing, at a hearing or through a local inquiry.
The Welsh infrastructure guidance also looks beyond the decision. Natural Resources Wales and planning authorities may discharge requirements in an Infrastructure Consent Order or be consulted when a requirement is discharged. A consent bundled into the order may still leave the relevant specialist body with an operational role.
Environmental and land evidence must start early
Natural Resources Wales is a statutory consultee for every significant infrastructure project application. Its advice can cover environmental considerations, assessment scope, deemed or extinguished consents and separate permits. The body’s pre-application services can be charged on a full-cost-recovery basis.
The Land Quality Advice Service guide is more prescriptive. Applicants are told to use agricultural land evidence during site selection, not simply after choosing a red-line boundary. If predictive mapping identifies grades 1, 2 or 3a land, a detailed Agricultural Land Classification survey will normally be needed.
For full surveys, the stated sampling density is one auger boring per hectare on a fixed 100-metre grid. Linear projects should achieve an equivalent density of about one boring every 100 metres. The service can validate privately commissioned surveys, and applicants are encouraged to seek validation at the scoping stage.
If a survey is not commissioned or accepted, the predictive map grade may have to be treated as the best available information. Where best and most versatile land remains within the scheme boundary, applicants should explain the strategic search, locational need, reasonable alternatives and why the chosen location is justified.
The Common Land Team guidance says replacement land must be proposed where more than 200 square metres of common land is to be released. The Welsh Government also expects replacement land below that threshold, reflecting its policy against reducing the overall stock of commons and greens.
Heritage, hazards and nuclear projects
The heritage guide brings together the roles of Cadw, Heneb and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. Cadw is a statutory consultee and applicants must give it at least 42 days to respond to formal pre-application consultation.
Cadw expects enough survey and desk-based information to assess effects on the historic environment. The scope extends from scheduled monuments, listed buildings and historic landscapes to protected wrecks and World Heritage Sites. Heneb maintains the Historic Environment Record and advises on non-designated archaeological assets, while the Royal Commission has a specialist maritime role.
The Health and Safety Executive guide focuses on major accident hazards. Applicants should engage early where a project may require hazardous substances consent, fall within major-hazard controls, affect an existing hazardous site or sit within a consultation zone around hazardous installations, pipelines or explosives sites.
Planning and Environment Decisions Wales will consult the Health and Safety Executive at the start of examination for all applications under the regime. However, applicants are expected to address the body’s pre-application comments beforehand rather than leaving known safety issues for examination.
For nuclear proposals, the Office for Nuclear Regulation has a separate licensing role as well as an advisory role in infrastructure consent. The guide identifies three potentially parallel permissions for a Welsh nuclear power station: infrastructure or planning consent, nuclear licensing and environmental permitting by Natural Resources Wales.
What applicants should take from the package
I would treat this Welsh infrastructure guidance as a project-planning checklist rather than background reading. The consistent message is that site selection, survey design, consultation strategy and regulatory budgeting should be joined up before the application is fixed.
The Welsh infrastructure guidance also warns against assuming that one infrastructure order makes every specialist issue disappear. Some separate consents can be included or extinguished, but the specialist regulator may still need to advise, license, permit or discharge requirements through a different statutory process.
Applicants should identify the relevant bodies, agree information requirements, record advice and show how responses changed the scheme. Where cost recovery applies, those discussions should include fees and programme assumptions at the outset.
The Welsh infrastructure guidance follows Planning and Environment Decisions Wales’ updated submission material published on 13th October. Planning Geek covered that earlier change in Welsh infrastructure applications get deemed-consent list, which explains the evidence needed when an order is intended to carry other statutory consents.
Taken together, the October publications make the new Welsh process more legible, but they also raise the standard expected before submission. A project that postpones land, heritage, environmental or safety engagement is now more likely to face avoidable validation questions, examination disputes or parallel-consent delays.
0 Comments