BLOGS

A new layer of planning authority is opening up

On 24 August 2026, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government opened a six-week consultation on extending call-in powers to mayors across England, running until 5 October 2026. The proposals build on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 and would give elected mayors in strategic authorities powers modelled closely on those the Mayor of London has held since 2000.

The headline thresholds under consideration outside London are schemes of more than 150 homes, commercial floorspace above 15,000 sqm, or buildings taller than 30 metres. London itself is consulting separately on lowering its own call-in threshold from 150 homes to just 50 — a significant tightening that would bring a far larger share of mid-sized residential schemes into City Hall's orbit. Ten of England's 14 devolved mayors have already indicated support for the wider proposals.

For institutional developers, lenders and investors, this is not a minor procedural tweak. It changes who has the final say on schemes that anchor GDV assumptions, financing timelines and site acquisition decisions across major UK cities.

Why this matters for approval timelines and risk pricing

The practical mechanism is already partly in place. Since March 2026, a Town and Country Planning Consultation Direction has required local planning authorities to notify the Secretary of State before refusing any housing scheme of 150 or more homes — effectively giving central government first refusal on the refusal itself. Mayoral call-in would extend a similar logic to city-region level, adding a second escalation route that sits between council committees and Whitehall.

London's track record offers the closest real-world precedent, and it comes with a caveat. Major applications determined under the Mayor of London's existing call-in powers have averaged around ten months from submission to decision — respectable relative to some borough timelines, but still short of statutory targets. Shifting authority upward does not automatically compress timelines; it adds a layer of coordination between mayoral offices, often smaller and less resourced than the Greater London Authority, and dozens of constituent local planning authorities.

REalyse planning data shows the scale of what is already moving through the system: residential applications covering more than 447,000 proposed units were submitted UK-wide between September 2025 and March 2026, with applications recorded as "in progress" up nearly 80% over that period as earlier reforms began feeding through. Approval rates for decided applications have held at roughly 65%. The open question is whether mayoral call-in adds further momentum to this pipeline, or introduces a new period of pre-decision uncertainty while escalation protocols between councils, mayors and ministers are worked out in practice.

The delivery gap this is meant to close

The reforms sit against a backdrop of persistent underdelivery relative to the government's target of 1.5 million homes this Parliament, with progress running at just over a quarter of that goal roughly two years in. National completions data underlines the gap: 39,890 homes were completed across the UK in Q1 2026, up 2.7% year-on-year but down 19.1% on the previous quarter, while Savills' English Housing Supply update put annual completions at around 202,700 in the year to Q2 2026 — a rise of only 0.4% on the previous quarter.

London's own experience is instructive for what mayoral powers can and cannot fix. Despite a Q4 2025 rebound in starts nationally, London's housing starts remain well below their long-term average of roughly 18,000 homes a year, and the Mayor's own 2021–26 Affordable Homes Programme target was cut twice, from an initial 35,000 starts to 17,800–19,000, with only 14,335 affordable starts recorded by March 2026. Call-in powers can unblock a stalled consent; they cannot, on their own, guarantee a stalled site gets built out.

What developers, lenders and investors should watch

For anyone underwriting a scheme above the proposed thresholds, three practical shifts are worth building into due diligence now:

• Refusal risk is becoming less binary. A committee-level refusal on a qualifying scheme is no longer necessarily the end of the road — proximity to a Spatial Development Strategy area, transport connectivity and alignment with national housing priorities may now matter more than the specific committee that first reviews an application.

• Timeline assumptions need a wider range. London's ~10-month average for mayoral-determined applications is a reasonable anchor, but combined authorities with newer, smaller planning teams may see longer or more variable timelines as the system beds in through 2026 and 2027.

• Geography is being redrawn in real time. With four new strategic authorities (Hampshire and the Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, Brighton and Sussex, and Greater Essex) holding elections by May 2026, the map of who can call in a scheme is still being finalised — land and pipeline positions should be mapped against this emerging mayoral geography, not against the current council-by-council picture.

Comparable-led analysis — achieved sale prices and £/sqft by property type, gross yields, and days on market near similar transport-linked schemes — will matter more, not less, as decision-making authority moves up a level. REalyse data on planning pipeline, comparables and local market indicators can help developers and lenders stress-test scheme viability against the specific mayoral or authority geography a site now falls under.

Outlook

The direction of travel is unambiguous: decision-making on strategic housing sites is moving away from individual borough and district committees and towards regional mayors and central government. Whether that translates into faster, more predictable delivery — rather than simply a new layer of escalation — will depend on how quickly combined authorities build the planning capacity that London's Mayor has had two decades to develop.

For institutional players, the practical takeaway is to start treating mayoral geography as a live underwriting variable. Schemes in strong transport catchments within established or soon-to-be-established mayoral areas are likely to see the fastest, and most closely scrutinised, path to consent as the consultation closes in October and implementation details firm up through 2026 and 2027.