Spatial strategy duty starts on 26 November as brownfield rule awaits regulations
The commencement instrument creates a preparation duty but does not itself set a brownfield-first allocation test.
1Summary
The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5) and English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 (Commencement No. 5) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/1157, bring section 58 and Schedule 2 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 into force on 26 November 2026. The instrument also brings section 39 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 into force on 04 November 2026. What the text says is narrower than a brownfield-first policy: it requires the Secretary of State to make regulations prescribing the desirability of prioritising previously developed land as a matter to which authorities must have regard when preparing a draft strategy. The instrument does not itself make those regulations or set a brownfield-first allocation test. The explanatory note says no separate impact assessment is required because no, or no significant, impact is foreseen; the instrument does not provide cost or readiness evidence for the preparation duties commencing on 26 November 2026.
2What changes
- Section 58 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 inserts new Part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. From 26 November 2026, strategic planning authorities are subject to the requirement to prepare a spatial development strategy.
- Schedule 2 commences on 26 November 2026, making consequential amendments across planning legislation. Paragraph 1 commenced on 04 November 2026 so that section 303A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 applies to public examinations of spatial development strategies.
- Section 39 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 commenced on 04 November 2026. It amends section 12G of the 2004 Act to require the Secretary of State to make regulations on the desirability of prioritising previously developed land.
- Analysis: commencement of section 39 is not commencement of an operative brownfield-first rule. The required regulations under section 12G are not made by SI 2026/1157.
- SI 2026/1157 contains no express transitional provision for emerging local plans, existing cross-boundary arrangements or strategies already under preparation.
3Who is affected
Strategic planning authorities are subject to the requirement to prepare spatial development strategies from 26 November 2026. The Secretary of State is required by section 39 to make regulations prescribing the desirability of prioritising development on previously developed land as a matter to which a strategic planning authority must have regard when preparing a draft spatial development strategy.
The instrument does not itself establish the wider effects on developers, infrastructure promoters, landowners or communities. The department identifies impact assessments for the two parent Acts, but the commencement instrument says that no full impact assessment has been produced for it because no, or no significant, impact is foreseen.
4Key dates
- 03 November 2026: SI 2026/1157 was made and signed by the Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
- 04 November 2026: Paragraph 1 of Schedule 2 to the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and section 39 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 came into force.
- 26 November 2026: Section 58 and the remainder of Schedule 2 to the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 come into force; section 58 inserts new Part 1A into the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, including the requirement to prepare spatial development strategies.