BLOGS

A planning system built for scale, not just speed

Eighteen months into Labour's revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), the story is no longer just about volume — it's about the size and shape of what's coming through. Large strategic sites, the kind that take a decade to deliver and define a town's housing supply for a generation, are moving again. Elms Park, the 4,000+ home scheme on London's fringe, is one of a growing list of major applications that have been called in or fast-tracked under the new framework, signalling a government willing to override local resistance to hit its 1.5 million homes target.

For institutional investors, developers and lenders, this matters more than the headline approval-rate statistics. A handful of large schemes can move more units through the pipeline than hundreds of smaller ones combined, and they carry different risk, financing and delivery profiles. Understanding where the government is choosing to intervene — and why — is now a core input into site selection and underwriting.

Restored targets and the return of the "call-in" as a policy tool

The reformed NPPF, published in December 2024, reinstated mandatory housing targets for local authorities and introduced a much stronger presumption in favour of development where a council cannot demonstrate a five-year land supply. Crucially, it also revived ministerial willingness to call in major applications — pulling large, contested schemes away from local planning committees and into central government decision-making, where delivery pressure typically outweighs local objection.

Planning Portal data shows the practical effect: applications for 335,000 homes outside London were lodged in 2025, up around 60% on 2024, with the fourth quarter alone seeing 109,000 new homes applied for outside the capital — a 61% jump on the same period the previous year. Much of this growth has been concentrated in large, strategic sites rather than incremental infill, precisely the category of scheme that call-in powers and streamlined appeals are designed to unblock.

London has moved in the opposite direction, with applications falling by almost a third over the same period, even as the mayor was handed new fast-track powers in October 2025. That divergence is a reminder that reform is landing unevenly — the biggest acceleration is happening in the commuter belt and growth corridors around London, not within it.

What "grey belt" means for scheme viability

Much of the newly unlocked large-site pipeline sits on land newly classified as "grey belt" — Green Belt land that is previously developed or contributes little to the purposes Green Belt protection was designed to serve. REalyse data shows green belt-adjacent residential applications rose to more than 1,600 in 2025, proposing in excess of 75,000 units, with approval rates holding at a relatively stable 66%.

For schemes of Elms Park's scale, grey belt status can be the difference between a site being commercially unviable and one that clears planning within a realistic timeframe. But it comes at a cost: the "golden rules" attached to grey belt release require up to 50% affordable housing provision, alongside infrastructure and green space contributions. Any GDV appraisal on a called-in grey belt scheme needs to treat that affordable housing requirement as a first-order variable, not a footnote — it can move materially during the consent process and reshape returns on schemes that looked attractive at the land-acquisition stage.

Approval rates are moving — just not in a straight line

The picture on approval rates is more mixed than the acceleration narrative suggests. REalyse's regional dataset shows the median approval rate for residential applications has fallen from around 62% pre-reform to roughly 46% post-reform, even as overall volumes have surged. That's consistent with a larger, more speculative pipeline working its way through committee — more sites are being tried, and a higher proportion are being tested against tougher scrutiny once they arrive.

Regional variation reinforces the point. In the South East, home to some of the country's largest called-in and strategic schemes, approval rates in commuter-belt counties such as Essex (59%), Surrey (61%) and Bedfordshire (61%) continue to lag behind less-constrained markets like Cornwall (81%) and County Durham (85%). This is exactly the friction the reforms target — and exactly why central government intervention on flagship schemes like Elms Park carries outsized signalling value for the wider pipeline.

For lenders and investors, the practical takeaway is that a rising pipeline is not the same as a rising conversion rate. Comparable large schemes, decision timelines and local plan status remain essential due diligence before committing development finance to any called-in or grey belt-adjacent site.

Where the opportunity — and the risk — sits

The South East holds the largest residential pipeline of any English region, with growth corridors such as the East of England and the wider Home Counties seeing the heaviest concentration of large-scale, grey belt-linked applications. These are the markets where accelerated call-ins and streamlined appeals are having the most visible effect on scheme size and delivery timelines.

For institutional players, three things stand out from the current pipeline data:

• Scheme scale is rising. The government's willingness to call in and fast-track schemes above a certain unit threshold is changing what developers are willing to bring forward, shifting the market toward larger, more capital-intensive sites.

• Affordability obligations are a live pricing variable. Golden rules requirements on grey belt sites mean land values, GDV assumptions and lender covenants all need continuous stress-testing against evolving planning conditions.

• Local plan status remains the best predictor of delivery speed. Large schemes in areas with adopted, up-to-date local plans are moving through the system markedly faster than those in authorities still working through outdated allocations.

Outlook

Labour's planning reforms have clearly re-energised the top end of the UK's development pipeline — call-ins, streamlined appeals and grey belt release have given schemes like Elms Park a route through a system that would have stalled them a few years ago. But acceleration at the largest, most politically visible schemes doesn't yet mean the system as a whole has got faster or more predictable; falling median approval rates and lengthening timelines for undecided applications suggest the machinery is still catching up with the ambition.

For developers, lenders and investors, the next 12–18 months of decisions on major called-in schemes will be the clearest signal yet of whether this is a genuine step-change in delivery capacity or a concentration of political will on a small number of flagship projects. Either way, tracking planning status, comparable schemes and local plan progression at the site level has never been more central to underwriting UK residential development.