From 2 December 2025, councils across the North must publish compulsory purchase order (CPO) notices and maps online. The move follows the government making The Levelling‑up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 8 and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 on 1 December, which switch on the Act’s online publicity rules. Legislation.gov.uk lists the instrument as S.I. 2025/1262 (C. 64).

The explanatory note says the change will “require that certain notices and documents be made available online” and is aimed at modernising publicity so residents and businesses can follow schemes more easily. For councils handling regeneration in town centres from Blackburn to Hull, this is a practical change to how objections and confirmations are advertised.

The rules apply to CPOs that are confirmed by a confirming authority other than the Welsh Ministers, or prepared in draft by an acquiring authority other than the Welsh Ministers. In practice, that covers most English schemes, including those led by Northern authorities. Welsh‑run orders sit outside these changes.

What actually changes is straightforward. The Act now defines an “appropriate website” as one the public could reasonably be expected to find when searching for information about the scheme. Notices must name that site and state the final day for objections. Publication in local newspapers and making papers available locally continue, though in special cases the confirming authority can waive the requirement to name a physical inspection place. After confirmation, notices also have to remain online for six weeks.

For residents and traders, that means land assembly for new homes, road schemes or station upgrades can be tracked on a council website rather than only on a town hall noticeboard or in the back pages of a local paper. The goal is better visibility without scrapping the offline routes that many people still use.

There’s also a tweak to how orders are signed off. New “conditional confirmation” powers allow a CPO to be confirmed subject to conditions; it only becomes operative once those conditions are met, and it can lapse if they aren’t. The detailed procedure for handling these applications will be set out in regulations subject to the negative resolution procedure in Parliament.

For schemes already in train, there’s a safeguard. If a CPO’s first statutory notice of making-or a draft notice-was published before 2 December 2025, the old rules continue to apply so the legal ground doesn’t shift mid‑process. That avoids confusion on ongoing acquisitions.

Northern planning teams will need to make sure CPO pages are easy to find and accessible on mobile, upload clear maps, and diarise the 21‑day objection window and six‑week post‑confirmation period. The “appropriate website” test is common sense: will the public find it when they search for the scheme?

Crucially, offline routes remain in place. Notices still go in local newspapers and copies remain available locally, with a narrow power for the confirming authority to set aside the need to name a physical inspection point if it’s impractical. That matters for communities with patchy broadband.

The regulations were signed by Housing and Planning Minister Matthew Pennycook on 1 December 2025, under the department’s restored name: the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Labour government retired the ‘levelling up’ label in July 2024 and reverted to MHCLG.

No separate impact assessment was produced for this instrument; the government points to the wider assessment for the 2023 Act. For Northern councils, the real work is practical-getting the web pages, mapping and records right so people can track what’s happening on their street.