Ministers have opened a 12‑week consultation on a rewritten National Planning Policy Framework aimed at speeding up decisions and building more homes. In a letter to every council leader and metro mayor in England on 16 December, Housing Secretary Steve Reed set out plans for a clearer, rules‑based approach and described the package as the next phase of reforms to unlock growth.

The draft framework splits policies for plan‑making and decision‑making, a change officials say should make local plans faster to produce and easier to use on the ground. Once the final NPPF is published, any older local plan policies that clash with new national decision‑making policies will carry “very limited weight”, a shift ministers argue will make national policy bite immediately. The consultation runs for 12 weeks, closing on 10 March 2026.

For councils and combined authorities across the North, the signal is clear: prepare now. Although the government will keep national planning policy as non‑statutory for the time being, the letter confirms its significant weight and sets an expectation that authorities already drafting new plans should have regard to the proposals. In practice, this points to quicker determinations for housing and commercial schemes where national policy is onside.

Whitehall will put extra capacity behind this push: £48 million to bolster stretched planning teams, plus a new £8 million pot to accelerate post‑outline decisions on major residential schemes. Of that, £3 million goes to the Greater London Authority to support boroughs, though the bulk of decision‑making funding will be targeted at authorities with a high volume of deliverable applications this Parliament.

One concrete Northern gain is in Sheffield, which has been named alongside Bristol and Lewisham for a £5 million expansion of the Small Sites Aggregator. The programme aims to stitch together up to 60 small brownfield plots for new social rent homes, giving SME builders a clearer pipeline and drawing in private investment where sites would otherwise sit idle.

Town halls are also being invited to help create pattern books of standardised, high‑quality house designs. Ministers say this will let the sector lean on modern methods of construction and new tech such as AI, building confidence for manufacturers to invest and speeding up delivery without cutting corners on quality.

On environmental rules, the government will exempt developments up to 0.2 hectares from biodiversity net gain and consult rapidly on a targeted brownfield exemption, testing site sizes up to 2.5 hectares. Ministers argue this will remove blockages on small and medium sites; environmental groups have already warned the move risks weakening nature protections.

Viability pressures are acknowledged head‑on. Councils are encouraged to take a pragmatic approach to requests to renegotiate Section 106 obligations where that would unlock stalled sites, while being wary of attempts to revisit fundamental issues via Section 73 applications. New Section 73B powers will be implemented to handle legitimate variations, but not to make it easier for developers to cut previously‑agreed affordable housing.

The package sits alongside the imminent Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2025. Headline changes include: a national scheme of delegation to modernise planning committees, the ability for councils to set locally‑determined planning fees within a national framework, stronger and clearer development corporation powers, a new strategic planning tier via Spatial Development Strategies, faster compulsory purchase processes and updated pre‑application rules for nationally significant infrastructure. Some measures are expected within two months of Royal Assent, with committee regulations consulted on for 2026 and NSIP pre‑application reforms due by late spring.

For Northern leaders, the next 12 weeks matter. The government wants universal local plan coverage and faster decisions; places like Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the North East and Tees Valley will want to road‑test these proposals against real housing pipelines and employment‑led growth. Sheffield’s small‑sites pilot will be an early test of whether the promised acceleration shows up on site. Submissions close on 10 March 2026.