Research by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) found that 72% of respondents had abandoned investment plans due to problems in the planning system, with 70% spending between £15,000 and £50,000 or more upfront on surveys, reports, and professional fees before a decision was reached. 

This front‑loading of costs raises important questions about proportionality and access to the planning process.

Over the past few years, environmental planning in the UK has undergone one of the most significant periods of change in over a decade. With the national consultation on the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) closing in March 2026, new national Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) standards coming into force, and the continued evolution of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) legislation, planning applications now demand more technical detail and earlier specialist input than ever before.

The Government’s revised draft NPPF in England, published in December 2025, represents not a simple update but a fundamental structural overhaul of planning policy. It places a far greater reliance on technical evidence to justify development proposals, reshaping how consultants, developers, and planning authorities approach the early stages of site design. While larger schemes are often able to absorb this change, for smaller developers and landowners the increased financial outlay required at pre‑application stage is increasingly preventing applications from being submitted at all.

Wales has continued to tighten its mandatory SuDS Approval Body (SAB) regime since its introduction, setting a clear expectation that drainage design should integrate biodiversity, amenity, and water quality considerations from the outset.

England is now catching up through the new national SuDS standards published in June 2025, replacing the hydraulics‑led 2015 guidance with a broader, multifunctional framework more closely aligned with the Welsh approach, albeit without a SAB. 

As design consultants, we strongly support the principle of embedding water within site layouts to create greener, more resilient places, but this shift inevitably requires much more detailed design work and coordination at an earlier stage than has historically been the case.

Similarly, BNG legislation continues to expand in scope and influence both the content and timing of ecological assessments. Greater emphasis on early ecological baselining, clear habitat creation proposals, long‑term management, and monitoring plans has strong benefits for the protection and recovery of biodiversity. However, it can also necessitate costly surveys and design iterations prior to planning submission, particularly where seasonal constraints apply.

We are also seeing increasing requirements for full landscape and visual impact assessments rather than proportionate visual appraisals. While these provide greater rigour and defensibility, a “one‑size‑fits‑all” approach risks applying the same level of scrutiny to modest developments as to strategic schemes.

On larger developments, these evolving environmental requirements can be used positively, helping to reshape landscapes and communities for the better. For smaller sites, limited space and rigid validation thresholds often make it impossible to achieve every policy objective simultaneously.

As design consultants, we believe strongly in policies that prevent environmental decline and work with nature rather than against it. However, for these policies to support delivery rather than stifle it, they must be embraced as design drivers, applied proportionately, and scaled to suit the size and location of sites. Done well, environmental policy can enhance development; done poorly, it risks becoming an unintended barrier to sustainable growth.