BLOGS

A new layer in the planning hierarchy

England's planning system already has a call-in mechanism: the Secretary of State can pull "nationally significant" applications away from local authorities for direct determination. The current consultation explores extending a version of that power to metro mayors and combined authorities, giving regional leaders the ability to intervene on large housing schemes that sit within their patch but are currently decided at borough or district level.

The rationale is straightforward. Mayors already hold strategic planning responsibility in several city regions — most visibly the London Plan, which the Mayor of London uses to guide referable applications over a certain unit threshold or site area. Extending a comparable call-in power to combined authorities such as Greater Manchester, West Midlands or West Yorkshire would, in theory, let regional leaders unblock stalled large-scale schemes that get stuck in local political cycles, without needing every case to go all the way to Whitehall.

For institutional investors and developers underwriting sites across multiple local authorities, this changes the calculus of where planning risk actually sits. A scheme that stalls at committee stage in one borough might, under a mayoral call-in regime, be resolved through a different — and potentially faster — decision route entirely.

Why this matters for scheme economics and timelines

Planning timeline risk is priced into every major residential scheme, whether through contingency in the development appraisal, phasing of land payments, or the discount rate applied by funders. REalyse's planning pipeline data — tracking application status, decision dates and stage progression across local authorities — consistently shows wide variation in time-to-decision for large-unit schemes, with some authorities processing major applications well within statutory timeframes and others running considerably over.

A mayoral call-in power is unlikely to remove this variation entirely, but it could compress the tail: the schemes that currently sit unresolved for extended periods due to local political sensitivity are precisely the ones a mayor with a city-region growth mandate would be most likely to intervene on. For developers holding land under option agreements, or lenders assessing drawdown schedules against planning milestones, even a modest reduction in worst-case timeline risk is meaningful when carrying costs are calculated over hundreds of units.

There's a flip side worth flagging. Call-in powers introduce a second layer of political judgement into the process. A scheme that clears local committee could, in principle, still be called in and revisited at combined-authority level — adding a step rather than removing one, at least in the short term while precedent is established. Institutional underwriters will want clarity on thresholds (unit count, site area, or GDV) before treating this as a net positive for delivery speed.

Where this could land differently across regions

Not every mayoral area is starting from the same base. Combined authorities vary significantly in their existing strategic planning capacity, and in how actively they've used soft-power tools — such as brownfield land funds, housing infrastructure funding, or informal engagement with major applicants — to shape large schemes before they reach committee. Regions that already have well-resourced spatial development strategies, such as Greater Manchester's, may be better placed to absorb a formal call-in power quickly and use it constructively.

For investors comparing opportunities across city regions, this is a factor worth layering into site selection alongside the more familiar metrics: achieved sale price per square foot, rental yield, and absorption rates on comparable schemes. REalyse's comparables data across local authorities already shows meaningful dispersion in build-to-rent and multi-unit scheme performance between, say, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds — and planning process reform is likely to widen or narrow that gap depending on how individual mayors choose to exercise any new powers.

Lenders assessing development finance applications will also want to watch how this interacts with existing local plan allocations. A call-in power is a process change, not a policy change — it doesn't itself alter housing targets, green belt policy or affordable housing requirements. But it does shift who has final say when local and regional priorities diverge, which is exactly the kind of ambiguity that shows up in extended due diligence timelines.

Outlook

This consultation is still at an early stage, and the detail — thresholds, appeal rights, and how call-in interacts with the existing Secretary of State route — will determine whether it meaningfully speeds up delivery or simply adds another checkpoint. For now, the practical takeaway for developers, investors and lenders is to keep planning pipeline and decision-timeline data close at hand when comparing opportunities across mayoral areas, since the relative attractiveness of different city regions for major housing schemes could shift as this policy develops.

We'll be tracking how call-in thresholds and early mayoral decisions play out across combined authorities, and how that shows up in planning pipeline data over the coming quarters.