The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, made on 20 May 2026 and published on legislation.gov.uk as SI 2026/549, bring a further part of the 2025 Act into force for England. In practical terms, the instrument switches on most of Part 1 of Schedule 5 from the day after it was made, so the operative start date is 21 May 2026. According to the explanatory note, this is the third set of commencement regulations under the 2025 Act. The measure was signed by Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, acting on the authority of the Secretary of State.
The legal change matters because Part 1 of Schedule 5 amends the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017. As the explanatory note on legislation.gov.uk states, those amendments extend the protection in Part 6 of the Habitats Regulations to Ramsar sites in England. Ramsar sites are wetlands of international importance designated under the 1971 Convention on Wetlands. The effect, in plain English, is that decision-makers carrying out assessments under the Habitats Regulations must treat Ramsar sites in the same manner as European sites once the new provisions are in force.
The commencement is not total. Regulation 3 brings Part 1 of Schedule 5 into force except paragraph 14(2), which this instrument does not commence. For planning authorities, developers and environmental advisers, that means the starting point is not all of Schedule 5 from one date, but almost all of Part 1 with a specific exception left for later. The significance is procedural and immediate. From 21 May 2026, the statutory assessment position in England changes for cases caught by the amended Habitats Regulations, and Ramsar protection moves onto a clear legislative footing rather than depending on policy treatment alone.
Regulation 4 then narrows the reach of the new regime through transitional provisions. The first carve-out applies to any project authorised by a planning permission granted before 17 August 2020. Where that threshold is met, the amendments made to the Habitats Regulations do not apply. The Regulations are also careful about section 73 permissions under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which are commonly used to vary or remove conditions. In those cases, the relevant date is not the later section 73 decision itself, but the date the previous permission was granted. That point will matter where an older consent has been amended more recently.
The second carve-out concerns 'general consent', a term the instrument defines in detail. Broadly, it covers permissions granted by order, scheme or zone under Part 3 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, rather than a conventional site-specific planning permission. Where a project relies on general consent, the amendments do not apply if the relevant date was before 21 May 2026. For prior approval development consent, that date is when prior approval was given, when a decision was issued that prior approval was not required, or when the period for deciding whether prior approval was required expired. In other general consent cases, the relevant date is when the development was commenced.
For planning practice, the immediate compliance question is not only what is being proposed, but how and when the underlying authorisation was obtained. Authorities screening proposals, statutory consultees reviewing effects, and promoters updating programmes will need to trace the route to consent with care before deciding whether the new Ramsar protection applies. For live schemes, the cut-off dates create a clear split. Permissions granted before 17 August 2020 remain outside the amended regime, and general consents with a relevant date before 21 May 2026 do the same. Newer permissions and qualifying consents will need to proceed on the basis that Ramsar sites now sit within the statutory habitats assessment process.
This instrument is therefore a commencement order with real operational effect. It does not recast the planning system as a whole, but it does alter the environmental assessment baseline for projects in England from 21 May 2026 onwards, subject to the savings written into Regulation 4. The explanatory note also records that an impact assessment was prepared for the parent Act and made available through the Parliamentary bill papers and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. For policy teams and practitioners, the immediate task is to establish the authorisation date and the consent route before determining whether the new Ramsar duties apply.