All Change: Strategic Plans and Planning Appeals Revamped

What do Strategic Planning and PINS procedural guidance have in common? Well, they both got an overhaul yesterday….

The last 24 hours was a busy one, as MHCLG published a raft of information about the return of strategic planning, including a written ministerial statement, launched a re-vamp of planning appeal procedures, and updated several planning reform working papers.

This blog looks at two of the big events from yesterday: Strategic Planning and the new Planning Appeal Procedures. As we have a lot to cover, I asked for a little help from some friends who are infinitely smarter than I am*, you will see their contributions below.

For each section, I will start by linking to the relevant documentation and then get on with the discussion. There is a lot for us to discuss….

Return of Strategic Planning

The following strategic planning documents were published on Thursday:

• A Written Ministerial Statement on Sub-Regional Planning
• A consultation on the areas for producing spatial development strategies, which closes on 26 March 2026; and
• A letter to Council Leaders on spatial development strategies and devolution.

If you need a re-cap of MHCLG’s proposals for strategic planning, then the WMS is not a bad place to start. It reminds us that:

“The rollout of SDSs will re-introduce a strategic tier to the planning system in England. SDSs are intended to be high-level spatial frameworks for housing growth and infrastructure investment. They will ensure that sub-regional areas can effectively plan to meet their housing needs; co-ordinate the provision of strategic infrastructure; grow their economies; and improve the environment and climate resilience. They will set the context for local plans which will have to be in “general conformity” with the SDS once it has been adopted.”

…..

“Mayoral strategic authorities will prepare the SDS for their area. In areas without mayoral strategic authorities, the responsibility for producing SDSs will sit with non-mayoral foundation strategic authorities. Where these do not exist, responsibility will sit with upper tier county councils and unitary authorities who will, in most cases, be required to work together to produce SDSs.“

Given that district and borough councils will not be a part of the strategic planning boards, the actual geographies involved (and the authorities that will have to work together to prepare SDS’s for them) are crucial. This is where the consultation comes in.

The consultation contains a map showing the following proposed groupings:

• Proposed SDS geographies based on existing devolution footprints i.e. Mayoral Authority Areas
• Proposed SDS geographies based on Devolution Priority Programme footprints
• Proposed SDS geographies not based on existing devolution footprints; and
• The areas where there doesn’t seem to be any agreement at all (shown in grey).

Which are handily summarised on the following map.

I mentioned that I was getting some help from my friends with this blog, well one of the clever people I spoke with was Catriona Riddell. Catriona considers the consultation to be “another massive milestone in getting back to an effective approach to strategic planning and actually having a plan-led system again. It has taken a while to get the SDS geography published for consultation but it is important we get this right and reflect as far as possible the emerging Devolution geography.”

This last point is very, very, true. The key to strategic planning’s success will be aligning as closely as possible to the new local government devolution areas… and there are consultations running on those proposals as well right now – so I suspect that this may well be a multiple consultation issue….

New Planning Appeal Procedures

The other big news from yesterday was the launch of new planning appeal procedural guidance from the Planning Inspectorate, which will apply to appeals relating to applications submitted on or after 1 April 2026.

The publication coincides with the making of the The Town and Country Planning (Appeals) (Written Representations Procedure) (England) (Amendment and Saving Provision) Regulations 2026 which come into effect on 1 April 2026.

These documents introduce a new “streamlined” procedure that will apply to most written reps appeals in due course. The new procedure is summarised in the following table:

It is very different.

In particular:

• The Appeal will be determined on the basis of the information and evidence before the local planning authority at the time of determination.
• There is no opportunity to submit any further evidence.
• There is no opportunity for any third party representations; and
• Late or additional documentation will not be permitted other than in truly exceptional circumstances.

Oh, and the guidance still requires you to submit an “executed and certified” s.106 Agreement alongside your appeal.

This new “streamlined” procedure is intended to become the default application route for the vast majority of appeals, with the route applying to:

• Appeals against a refusal of planning permission
• Appeals against a the imposition of an objectionable planning condition
• Appeals against a refusal of prior approval
• Appeals against a refusal of advertisement consent
• Appeals against the refusal of a reserved matters application
• Appeals against the LPA’s refusal of a section 73 application
• Appeals against the LPA’s refusal of a section 73A application; and
• Appeals against permission in principle or refusal of technical details consent

i.e. pretty much everything except non-determination appeals, listed building appeals, and appeals against discontinuance notices.

The new procedure will apply unless the Planning Inspectorate decides than an alternative procedure (the standard written reps procedure, a hearing or a public inquiry) is more appropriate.

The guidance for hearings and public inquiries is largely the same, albeit with some additional emphasis on the need to reduce changes to schemes during the appeal process, and minimise the late submission of documentation or evidence.

All of which means that for planning applications submitted after 1 April 2026, there are very clear and obvious differences in the information needed to submit your appeal – based on the procedural route that the appeal ends up following – and if you get those submission criteria wrong, then the ability to fix that by submitting more information post-submission is more limited.

This is a problem.

It is a problem because appellants don’t choose their procedural route, the planning inspectorate does, and they do so *after* the appeal has been submitted.

The problems this causes for unexpected appeals allocated to the new streamlined written reps route should be obvious – but I will indulge myself with an example anyway:

Imagine that you are submitting an appeal which you believe will be suitable for a hearing – you pull together a full statement of case, in accordance with the guidance for hearings, including heads of terms for your s.106 Agreement – but don’t prepare the s.106 Agreement itself (as it isn’t needed for this route). PINS allocates you to the streamlined written reps procedure. Suddenly nothing in that lovingly prepared statement of case is going to be taken into account (meaning it is wasted time and money), and you are at risk of being refused as your appeal wasn’t accompanied by an executed and certified s.106 Agreement – and the prospects of the LPA having the legal resource available to agree one with you urgently is, in the current climate, remote.

I have already written about the issues with requiring an agreed and executed s.106 Agreement at the point of submission of a written reps appeal. To recap, however, most Local Planning Authorities are desperately short of legal resource. Expecting them to allocate the planning lawyers that they do have to negotiating s.106 Agreements for schemes that they have just refused, where the appeal *has not even been submitted yet* seems…. unrealistic…..

That said, this is not just a written reps issue. To explain the issues this causes for hearings and inquiries, I am going to call on another expert voice. That of Zack Simons KC**:

“A core problem is that you don’t know (and cannot choose) what procedure you will be decided in at the point you lodge your appeal.

This matters because:

(a) as years of data has shown, there are enormous statistical variances in success rates for appeals determined through the different routes; and

(b) there are (increasingly) vast discrepancies in the work that PINS expect to be submitted alongside an appeal depending on what your route is.

The whole process starts to fall apart, I think, when it comes to non-determination appeals (an increasingly common route at the moment) because the appellant is expected to produce a “full” statement of case when you do not know, and often have no way of knowing, what the case against you is going to be.

The problem is particularly acute for non-determination appeals determined through the hearing route because then you do not – at least as a matter of course – have any right to submit any new material once you know what the case against you actually is.”

In short, whilst I fully accept the rationale for wanting to streamline the appeals system, doing so in this manner – without first giving appellants certainty over the procedural route before submission – is both impractical and problematic.

Oh, and at the risk of being blunt, expecting all written reps appeals to be submitted with an executed s.106 Agreement that has been agreed with the LPA is …. well… lets stick with unrealistic….

However, this is the guidance that has been published, and unless it changes, the guidance that we are going to work with for applications submitted after 1 April 2026.

As such, my advice to all applicants would be:

• If you can submit your planning applications before the end of March, then do so;
• After that date, be very aware that your application needs to be appeal ready from the start; and
• Where ever possible, progress your s.106 Agreement whilst the application is running – so that if you do get refused you at least have a well advanced, and hopefully largely agreed, version to work from.

Consultation Deadlines and Next Steps

And finally, MHCLG also took the opportunity to update several of the Planning Reform Working Papers that it published throughout 2024 and 2025.

Each of the following working papers now has a end date, after which comments or representations will no longer be accepted.

• The Planning Reform Working Paper: Brownfield Passports has a response deadline of 11:45pm on Friday 28 February.
• The Planning Reform Working Paper: Development and Nature Recovery has a response deadline of 11:45pm on Friday 21 February; and
• Planning Reform Working Paper: Planning Committees has a response deadline of 11:45pm on Friday 21 February.

These particular working papers cover policy areas covered by the Planning & Infrastructure Act 2025 and the current NPPF consultation, which closes in early March. Which may, or may not, be an indication of the next items on MHCLG’s to do list….

*and my coffee machine

**this is a star studded blog, something that I can’t guarantee I will be able to repeat