The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026 were made on 20 May 2026 and signed by Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. As the legislation.gov.uk instrument makes clear, this is the third set of commencement regulations made under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. The legal effect is tightly defined but significant for planning and environmental assessment casework. Regulation 3 brings Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the 2025 Act into force on 21 May 2026, the day after the Regulations were made, with one express exception: paragraph 14(2) remains out of force. For practitioners, the importance lies in the fact that Schedule 5 changes the statutory treatment of Ramsar sites in England under the Habitats Regulations regime.
According to the explanatory note, Part 1 of Schedule 5 amends the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. Its main effect is to extend the protection in Part 6 of those Regulations to Ramsar sites in England, so that those wetlands are brought within the same statutory assessment approach applied to European sites. The note defines Ramsar sites as wetlands of international importance designated under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, signed at Ramsar on 2 February 1971. In practical terms, the amendment means that, when assessments are carried out under the 2017 Regulations, Ramsar sites in England must be treated in the same manner as European sites. That gives the commencement immediate relevance for planning decisions and other project authorisations that may affect protected wetland habitat.
The Regulations also matter because they draw clear lines between different forms of consent. They distinguish ordinary planning permission under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 from a "general consent", which is permission granted for a description or class of development under Part 3 of that Act through an order, scheme or zone, rather than a site-specific planning permission. They also define "prior approval development consent" as a form of general consent that depends on prior approval, or on a determination as to whether prior approval is required. Those definitions are not merely drafting detail. They decide which historic projects are excluded from the new Ramsar assessment requirements and which projects will need to comply from 21 May 2026 onward.
Regulation 4 sets out the main transitional exclusion for projects already authorised. The amendments made to the Habitats Regulations do not apply to any project authorised by planning permission granted before 17 August 2020. That date is fixed in the instrument and operates separately from the commencement date of 21 May 2026. The treatment of section 73 permissions is especially important for planning practice. Where planning permission was granted under section 73 of the 1990 Act, the relevant grant date is the date on which the previous permission was granted, not the date of the later section 73 permission itself. In effect, an updated section 73 permission does not reset the clock for the purpose of this transitional rule if the underlying permission predates 17 August 2020.
A separate transitional rule applies where a project was authorised by general consent. In those cases, the amendments do not apply if the "relevant date" fell before 21 May 2026, which is the date on which Part 1 of Schedule 5 came into force. For prior approval development consent, the relevant date is the date on which prior approval was given, the date on which a determination was made that prior approval was not required, or, where the consent depended on a decision about whether prior approval was required, the date on which the period for making that decision expired. For any other form of general consent, the relevant date is the date on which the development was commenced. The drafting preserves the legal position of projects that had already progressed sufficiently under existing consent routes before commencement.
For local planning authorities, statutory consultees, developers and environmental advisers, the immediate question from 21 May 2026 is not only whether a proposal may affect a Ramsar site in England, but also whether the project is saved by the transitional provisions. That means the status of the site and the precise consent history now need to be checked together. This is therefore more than a routine commencement order. It brings a substantive environmental protection change into force while drawing careful boundaries around older planning permissions and general consents. The explanatory note also records that an impact assessment was produced for the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 as a whole and is available through the parliamentary papers and the Ministry. In operational terms, the Regulations require active review of live applications, section 73 cases and prior approval files against the dates and definitions set out in Regulation 4.