HBF Planning Conference 2026

Housebuilders’ experience of the planning system may not be “matching up” with the government’s ambitions, it has acknowledged, according to Manuela Solera-Deuchar, MHCLG’s planning director.

Speaking at the Home Builders Federation’s Planning Conference in Birmingham, Solera-Deuchar told delegates that ministers “understand that what we experience in Whitehall may not be what you experience”, with the government keen to work with the industry to address this.

Solera-Deuchar gave an overview of what the Labour administration had achieved so far with planning reform – including two revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

The government was helping the industry meet minister ambitions by tackling the “grit in the system” beyond reform, including establishing a national scheme of delegation and introducing planning fees, Solera-Deuchar said.

Meanwhile, MHCLG would “keep up the momentum while maintaining stability as the changes set in”.

Looking ahead to changes still to come, she said - when asked - that the Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) on design and placemaking “should come out this side of Christmas” with the Model Design Codes expected “shortly afterwards”. The updated PPG “suite” to reflect the new NPPF would be published “in a phased way”.

Solera-Deuchar said: “We understand that what we experience in Whitehall [of the planning system] may not be what you experience. We do have a new prime minister but what doesn’t feel different is our commitment to planning reform and the importance of housing and how much it matters to government objectives.”

Also speaking at the conference, Emily Williams, Savills’ director – residential research, said Labour’s first reform of the NPPF in 2024 had not “unleashed [the] flood” of planning activity that people had hoped to see.

But the planning system could not be entirely blamed. “There have been lots of other headwinds: viability, sales rates, uncertainty of the economic outlook and uncertainty of the direction of debt,” Williams commented. The Iran war had quelled earlier glimmers of market positivity, she noted.

But Williams added that there was “room for improvement” in planning numbers. Presenting data on planning consents, home completions and local plan adoption, Williams said that 233,000 planning consents had been achieved in the year to June 2026. This compared to the 340,000 consents of several years previously.

It was likely, she stated, that around 900,000 homes would be delivered in this parliament. “The [1.5 million new homes target] was never achievable. We haven’t really seen the pickup we would have expected.” The market “has not been with the government.”

Tackling other elements of planning change, Anna Lucas, principal consultant of the Planning Advisory Service, addressed the new local plan making system and the challenges and opportunities it presented. Meanwhile, Catriona Riddell, director of Catriona Riddell and Associates, looked at the upcoming reintroduction of spatial development strategies.

The new system for local plan making, Lucas noted, was in in the context of more than two thirds of local plans being more than five years old. Changes to local plan making include a 30-month local plan timetable and early engagement with three gateway assessments.

Lucas also noted the new system’s engagement with digital tools. This includes digital, map-based local plans. The system would require a “cultural change” but in one opportunity Lucas could see, this “has been accepted. We see local authorities embracing the system. They don’t have the time to procrastinate and worry”.

Catriona Riddell said spatial development strategies (SDSs) meant “trying to look at things on a bigger scale. They’ve got to be big enough to implement national ambitions but small enough to reflect local circumstances: that magical geography".

Partnerships, Riddell stressed, would be a key element of successful SDSs. “Developers, land agents, communities – everyone is trying to do the same thing: create good communities.”

The conference also featured two expert panels. The first - The impact of planning reform on housing supply - included discussion on the NPPF: what needed clarification and how large housebuilders and SMEs had received the changes; viability; the Housing Delivery Test results; the consultation on standard planning agreements for medium sites and the judicial review process.

Speakers on the first panel included Zack Simons KC of Landmark Chambers, Matthew Spry, senior director of Lichfields, Andrew Taylor, group planning director of Vistry, and Michelle Hyde, managing director of Backhouse Housing.

The second panel – The benefits of planning in the face of objection – explored how to improve public engagement and capture those who supported, not objected to new housing; councillors’ approaches to and perspectives on the subject; and how to make people aware of the wider benefits of new schemes when section 106 contributions sit unspent.

The second panel’s speakers included Millie Dodd, account director, communications and marketing of Shared Voice, Fiona Howie, director of communities and placemaking at Cratus Group, and Antony Pollard, senior director, head of economics at Turley.

With the digitisation of planning a theme of the conference, Peter Kemp, director of ProcessusTech, spoke about the planning system’s digital approach to streamline applications and processes. But the government only offered the a“basic setup" here, he said.