BLOGS

A new layer of planning authority

Government proposals now under consultation would hand regional mayors the power to call in major housing schemes for direct decision, sidestepping local planning committees that have long been a source of delay and unpredictability for large-scale development.

The change targets schemes above a certain unit threshold or strategic significance — typically the large mixed-use and build-to-rent (BTR) sites that make up a disproportionate share of delayed pipeline volume. For institutional investors and developers who have spent years pricing in "planning risk" as a discrete line item in their underwriting models, this represents a structural shift worth watching closely.

Mayoral combined authorities in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire and the North East have all pushed for greater strategic planning powers in recent years, arguing that fragmented local decision-making is a drag on regional housing targets. This consultation formalises that ambition into a national framework.

Why planning delay matters to the numbers

Planning risk is not an abstract concern — it shows up directly in scheme economics. Extended committee timelines push back completion dates, inflate holding costs, and in a rising-rate environment, can erode development margins by several percentage points before a single unit is sold or let.

REalyse's planning pipeline data typically shows a meaningful share of large residential schemes (100+ units) spending well over a year between submission and decision in contested local authority areas, with some outliers extending considerably longer where committees defer or request repeated amendments. Consolidating call-in authority at mayoral level could meaningfully compress this range for qualifying schemes, since a single strategic decision-maker — accountable to a regional mandate rather than a ward-level electorate — may be less prone to the repeated deferrals that characterise contentious local votes.

For lenders and credit teams, faster and more predictable decision timelines reduce the duration of exposure to planning risk on development finance facilities, which could support marginally tighter pricing on schemes located in mayoral authority areas that adopt the power actively.

Where the pipeline is concentrated

Development pipeline data across the mayoral combined authority footprints — Greater Manchester, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region, North East and Tees Valley — shows a consistent pattern: a small number of large strategic sites account for a disproportionate share of total consented units, while a long tail of smaller schemes moves through local committees largely unaffected by this reform.

This matters for portfolio-level analysis. Investors screening for exposure to the policy change should filter pipeline data by unit count and scheme value rather than by local authority alone, since call-in powers are expected to apply selectively to schemes crossing scale thresholds rather than universally across all applications.

Market implications for developers and investors

If mayoral call-in shortens the runway from submission to decision on large schemes, the practical effect is a faster route to converting site value into GDV-backed lending or forward-funding structures. Comparable sales and achieved price-per-square-foot data in the surrounding market — the kind of evidence typically used to underwrite GDV assumptions — becomes more valuable when decision timelines shrink, because assumptions need to be current rather than stale by the time consent is granted.

There is a secondary effect worth flagging for agents and valuers: areas that see a concentration of mayoral-approved large schemes may experience faster supply additions than the surrounding market has historically absorbed. Monitoring asking price and achieved price trends, alongside days-on-market data, in the immediate vicinity of newly consented large schemes will help gauge whether local demand is keeping pace with accelerated delivery.

For buy-to-rent and BTR-focused investors specifically, faster consent on strategic sites could bring forward the timing of new supply in target submarkets, which has implications for medium-term rental growth and yield assumptions in areas already seeing BTR concentration.

Outlook

The consultation is still open, and the detail — thresholds, appeal rights, and which mayoral authorities gain the power first — will determine how significant this actually becomes in practice. But the direction of travel is clear: central and regional government want fewer, faster, more strategically-aligned decisions on the schemes that move the needle on housing targets.

For institutional players, the sensible response is not to wait for the policy to land before acting. Reviewing pipeline exposure by scheme scale and mayoral authority area now, and stress-testing GDV and timeline assumptions against a faster-decision scenario, positions developers and lenders to move quickly once the framework is confirmed.