Local plans: the old and new systems in England

 

Almost every planning decision in England starts with the development plan. Under section 38 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, planning decisions are made in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. For most applicants, the local plan is the part of that development plan they encounter most often. Our separate guide explains what the development plan is and which documents form part of it.

England is currently running two local plan-making systems side by side. The legacy system uses the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012. Those Regulations were revoked on 25 March 2026 but saved for eligible plans already progressing through the old system. New plans use the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026, with three formal gateway assessments and a government expectation of a 30-month plan-making timetable.

The August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework adds another important layer: new plan-making policies, new national decision-making policies, and Annex A rules governing the weight of older development plan policies. This page explains how all of that fits together.

Bristol is an early example of the transition in practice. Its 2022–2040 plan is still at examination while work on a new plan to 2045 has already started. Our Bristol Local Plan story explains why the two processes overlap.

 

What is in the development plan?

 

Since 25 March 2026, section 38(2A) of the 2004 Act defines the development plan in England by reference to its component documents. Depending on the area, that can include an operative Spatial Development Strategy (the London Plan in Greater London), local plan, minerals and waste plan, supplementary plan, made neighbourhood development plan and the policies map.

If provisions within the development plan conflict, section 38(5) gives priority to the policy in the document which became part of the development plan most recently, so timing can matter where, for example, a newer neighbourhood plan conflicts with an older local plan.

But there is now an equally important national-policy point. Age alone is not the test for the weight of an adopted policy. Annex A of the August 2026 NPPF says that an existing development plan policy which is materially inconsistent with a national decision-making policy should be given very limited weight, subject to the Framework’s implementation arrangements. An older policy which remains consistent with current national policy is not downgraded merely because it predates August 2026.

This matters enormously in applications and appeals. The question is no longer simply “is the local plan more than five years old?” or “was this policy written under an older NPPF?” The more useful question is whether the policy actually conflicts materially with the current national decision-making policy that governs the proposal.

 

National decision-making policies are not statutory NDMPs

 

The terminology is easy to confuse. The August 2026 NPPF contains a set of national decision-making policies, but these are non-statutory national planning policies within the NPPF. They are not the statutory National Development Management Policies (NDMPs) provided for by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.

The 2023 Act created powers for statutory NDMPs and a different statutory decision-making framework. Government expressly decided not to designate statutory NDMPs at this stage, choosing instead to introduce the new NPPF decision-making policies on a non-statutory basis. Section 38(6) therefore remains the familiar statutory starting point for decisions.

 

Two local plan systems are running at the same time

 

The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026 came into force on 25 March 2026. The 2012 Regulations were revoked, but saving provisions allow qualifying legacy plans already in preparation to continue through the old route.

The two systems cannot be mixed. A council cannot carry out an old Regulation 18 consultation and then jump into the new system at Gateway 1. A plan must follow the statutory process that applies to it from start to finish.

For the legacy route, the key backstop is clear: 31 December 2026 is the last date on which a local plan can be submitted for examination under the 2012 system, subject to the specific earlier transitional arrangements which applied to some plans under the December 2024 NPPF. Plans submitted by the applicable legacy deadline can continue through examination and adoption under the saved provisions.

The duty to co-operate has also gone. It was not saved for legacy plans continuing through the old system, while the new statutory plan-making system uses a different framework for strategic engagement and assistance between public bodies.

 

The legacy system: the regulation numbers you still hear

 

For plans completing under the saved 2012 Regulations, the familiar stages remain useful shorthand:

• Regulation 18 – preparation: early consultation on what the plan should contain. Emerging policies are normally at an early stage and may carry limited weight
• Regulation 19 – publication: the council publishes the plan it proposes to submit. This is the familiar “Reg 19 plan” and the policies are much more settled, but the plan is not yet adopted
• Regulation 20 – representations: formal representations are made on the published plan. Unresolved objections to a particular policy can affect the weight given to it before adoption
• Regulation 22 – submission: the plan and prescribed documents are submitted for independent examination
• Regulation 24 – examination: examination hearings and associated procedure
• Regulation 25 – inspector’s report: publication of the report following examination
• Regulation 26 – adoption: the plan becomes part of the development plan
• Regulations 27 and 28: withdrawal and revocation
• Regulation 35: availability of documents and information

Old Regulation 9 dealt with the policies map and Regulation 10A required local development documents to be reviewed at least every five years. A failure to review can still be important evidence about whether the plan is keeping pace with current needs and circumstances, but age on its own is not now a rule for reducing policy weight; Annex A’s material-inconsistency test is the more precise August 2026 decision-making rule.

 

The new system: notices, gateways and the 30-month timetable

 

The 2026 Regulations use completely different regulation numbers and a much more structured process. The same number can therefore mean something entirely different depending on which system the council is using.

The principal new-system stages are:

• Regulation 18: duty to begin preparing a replacement plan within the statutory period
• Regulation 19: notice of intention to commence local plan preparation
• Regulation 20: scoping consultation
• Regulation 21 – Gateway 1: publication of the authority’s Gateway 1 self-assessment, which marks the formal start of the 30-month plan-making timetable
• Regulation 22: publication of the scoping consultation summary
• Regulation 23: consultation on proposed plan content and evidence, for at least six weeks
• Regulation 24: publication of the consultation summary
• Regulation 25: map of proposed local plan policies
• Regulation 26 – Gateway 2: observations and advice on the plan’s progress and readiness
• Regulation 27: consultation on the proposed local plan, for at least eight weeks. This is the closest new-system equivalent to the old Regulation 19 publication stage
• Regulation 30: publication of a summary of that consultation
• Regulations 31–33 – Gateway 3: assessment against the prescribed requirements before submission
• Regulation 34: submission to the Secretary of State
• Regulation 35: independent examination
• Regulation 36: pause of the examination for further work, subject to the regulatory limit
• Regulation 37: examiner recommendations and reasons
• Regulation 39: adoption, with Regulation 41 dealing with revision
• Regulation 85: form and content of the consolidated policies map

The new system is designed around a 30-month end-to-end plan-making timetable from Gateway 1, with Gateway 2 and Gateway 3 intended to expose problems earlier rather than leaving them all to the final examination. A current practical example is the new Hull Local Plan, where scoping comes before Gateway 1 and the Council currently anticipates the formal 30-month clock starting no earlier than 16 September 2026.

 

Which version of the NPPF applies to an emerging plan?

 

This needs separating from the rules for deciding planning applications. The August 2026 decision-making policies took effect immediately for planning decisions, but plan-making has its own transitional arrangements in Annex A.

Plans prepared in the new 2026 system are intended to use the new plan-making architecture and the August 2026 Framework. Spatial development strategies and new-system minerals, waste and supplementary plans are likewise within the new framework.

Legacy plans progressing under the saved old system are different. Annex A preserves transitional arrangements so that a plan already well advanced is not automatically forced back to the beginning simply because a new NPPF has appeared. Neighbourhood plans have their own transition provisions.

So do not assume that because the August 2026 NPPF applies to the decision on an application today, every emerging plan currently at examination must also be re-examined from scratch against every new plan-making policy. Check Annex A and the route under which that particular plan is progressing.

 

How much weight can an emerging local plan carry?

 

An emerging plan is not yet part of the development plan, so section 38(6) does not give it the status of an adopted plan. It can nevertheless be an important material consideration.

The current NPPF deals with this through policy DM4 – Emerging development plan proposals. Our dedicated guide to emerging Local Plan weight and prematurity takes that decision-making test further. In deciding how much weight to give an emerging policy, the relevant considerations include:

• the stage of preparation – the more advanced the plan, the more weight it may attract;
• the extent of unresolved objections to the relevant policy – fewer or less significant unresolved objections can support greater weight; and
• the degree to which the relevant emerging policy complies with the plan-making policies of the Framework.

The exercise is policy-specific rather than a single label applied to the whole emerging plan. A heavily disputed policy can carry relatively little weight even when other parts of the same plan are well advanced.

The test also works both ways. An applicant can rely on a supportive emerging allocation or policy just as the council can rely on an emerging restraint policy. An emerging allocation does not itself grant planning permission, and omission from an emerging allocation does not itself prohibit development. Even so, movement towards an allocation can affect market expectations and the planning uplift attributed to land long before a planning permission is granted.

 

Prematurity: when can an emerging plan justify refusal?

 

DM4 also contains the current prematurity policy. Refusal on prematurity grounds remains a narrow route. Broadly, both parts of the test must be satisfied:

• granting permission would be so substantial, or its cumulative effect so significant, that it would undermine the plan-making process by predetermining decisions about the scale, location or phasing of development central to the emerging plan; and
• the emerging plan is at an advanced stage but is not yet part of the development plan

National policy continues to make clear that prematurity will seldom justify refusal before a draft plan has reached the relevant advanced stage, which for a local plan will ordinarily mean submission for examination. Where prematurity is relied upon, the authority should explain clearly how the proposal would prejudice the outcome of the plan-making process.

For an ordinary householder or modest development, a prematurity refusal is therefore unusual. The larger and more strategically significant the proposal, the more realistic the argument becomes.

 

When must councils move into the new system?

 

The Government’s rollout rules create several different dates, so a single “everyone starts on 31 December” statement would be wrong.

• Authorities intending to submit a legacy plan must do so by 31 December 2026, unless an earlier specific transitional deadline applies
• A defined group caught by the December 2024 NPPF transition had to publish its notice of intention to commence new-system plan-making by 30 June 2026 and Gateway 1 by 31 October 2026
• For other authorities not submitting a legacy plan by 31 December 2026, the latest notice date is 31 December 2026 or when the adopted plan is 4 years and 8 months old, whichever is later
• The corresponding Gateway 1 backstop is 30 April 2027 or when the adopted plan is five years old, whichever is later

Publishing Gateway 1 starts the 30-month timetable. Authorities can of course begin earlier, and Government guidance encourages them to do so.

 

Should you apply now or wait for the local plan?

 

There is no universal answer. Applying sooner can make sense where the adopted development plan supports the proposal and an emerging policy would make matters harder, where a relevant adopted policy is materially inconsistent with current national decision-making policy, or where the development is too modest realistically to justify a prematurity refusal.

Waiting can make sense where an emerging plan is close to adoption and would positively allocate or support the site. But remember that an application is determined on the policy position at the time of the decision, not frozen on the policy position that existed on the day it was submitted.

There is also a third option: engage with the plan itself. If a site needs allocating, a settlement boundary needs changing or a policy needs rewriting, influencing the plan can be more valuable than fighting one application. The early scoping and content stages of the new system, and Regulation 18 under the legacy system, are the points at which that engagement can have the most effect.

That is particularly important where a council proposes a locally defined strategic gap, green wedge or settlement gap, because the strength and purpose of those policies comes from the development plan rather than from a single national definition.

 

Costs, refusals and challenges

 

There is no council fee for making representations to a local plan consultation or for taking part in the examination process. Professional planning, legal or technical advice is a private cost.

If you submit a planning application while a plan is emerging, the ordinary planning application fees apply. If permission is refused, including on prematurity grounds, the normal section 78 appeal route is available; see our planning appeals section.

The local plan itself cannot be challenged through a planning appeal. A legal challenge to an adopted local plan is made under section 113 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 within the statutory time limit. Our guide to judicial review and statutory planning challenges explains the distinction.

 

England only

 

This page is about England. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate development-plan systems and the English 2026 Regulations and NPPF do not apply there.

 

Where to go next

 

For how national and local policy interact in a live application, see our guides to the NPPF, presumption in favour of sustainable development and settlement boundaries. If you are promoting housing land, our SHLAA guide explains the land availability evidence. Local plans also have an important role in setting pitch and plot requirements and identifying sites for Gypsy and Traveller sites.

 

Relevant legislation and guidance

 

• Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026 – the new plan-making system;
• Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 11 and Saving and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 – commencement and saving arrangements;
• Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 – the revoked but saved legacy system;
• Section 38, Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 – development plan and decision-making;
• Section 113, Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 – legal challenge to development plan documents;
• Government guidance on rollout of the new local plan-making system;
• National Planning Policy Framework (August 2026) – including DM4 and Annex A

Other Planning Application Sections

 

Local Plan Page Updated: 7th September 2026