A new NPPF has arrived: just in time for the end of the summer

Breaking with tradition, and rumours that have abounded for months, the new version of the NPPF was published on 17th August 2026.

As expected, the changes between the draft version first published in December 2025 are not particularly substantial, but any community who has not yet got to grips with the proposed changes in the intervening period needs to know that they must do so now. The new NPPF applies to decision making now.

Having said that the NPPF is a big document, and like the plethora of other planning legislation and guidance out there, it isn't reasonable to expect to be able to commit it all to memory. Instead, we bring you a summary of the top ten things communities need to know.

What town and parish councils need to know about the August 2026 NPPF

1. The new NPPF applies right now, and so does the idea of 'automatic yes'

There is no grace period for decision-taking. The new Framework applies to applications determined on or after 17 August 2026, which means it is already shaping the recommendations your case officers are writing this week. The familiar tilted balance in old paragraph 11 has gone, replaced by a new structure in policies S3, S4 and S5.

Inside a settlement boundary, policy S4 says development should be approved unless the benefits are substantially outweighed by the adverse effects. That is the source of the 'automatic yes' headlines, and it is a genuine change in the starting point. It is not, however, actually automatic, and there a number of exceptions.

If you are a council used to responding to applications with generalised objections, you will now have to focus comments using the named policies and being far more specific. And remember the new appeal (from last April) and delegated decision (from 1 November) processes that place an even greater premium on the focus and quality of those comments.

2. The NPPF is now split into plan-making and national decision-making policies

The Framework separates the policies used to prepare plans, which carry PM references, from the national decision-making policies (NDMP) used to determine applications (DM references). This is the structural change from which almost everything else follows and it is vital for neighbourhood planners to know its effect.

From now on (if the plan hasn’t already been submitted under Regulation 15) it cannot contain policies which duplicate, substantively restate or are inconsistent with an NDMP. However, this still leaves plenty of room for a plan to show how and where in its area a specific NDMP applies, and to put flesh on the bones of the NDMP where there is the evidence to do so.

It is true to say that, for now, the Government has left NDMPs as ‘material considerations’, rather than place them on the same footing as the ‘development plan’. But we don’t expect that to make a difference to how planning authorities apply them in practice. Let’s see!

3. Changes to densities around well-connected train stations

Policy S5 now supports residential and mixed-use development outside settlement boundaries where it:

• would be within reasonable walking distance (800m) of a well-connected station (now located in the top 80, not 60, travel to work areas by GVA with frequent services)

• would be physically well-related to the station or its settlement,

• would be of a scale that the available infrastructure can accommodate, and

• would not prejudice longer-term comprehensive development of the same location.

For a rural parish with a well-connected station, this could be is a significant new source of development pressure in locations that may have been ignored in the past. And where the policy applies, minimum densities of 35 dwellings per hectare apply, rising to 45 dwellings per hectare at the higher service frequencies (noting this is less than the draft, which proposed densities of 40 and 50 respectively).

4. There are new neighbourhood plan policies that replace the old

Neighbourhood planning is now governed by a cluster of new references:

• PM5 sets out what a neighbourhood plan does,

• PM6 sets the general principles for all plan-makers,

• PM17 deals with examination and the basic conditions,

• S6 governs the weight a plan carries in housing decisions, and

• HO2 deals with the housing requirement figure for your area.

PM5 confirms that neighbourhood plans allow local communities to plan positively by allocating land and setting out locally specific policies. Those can be site-specific, or can cover wider matters such as infrastructure, community facilities and design requirements including design codes. The policy also makes explicit a firm limit: the contents of a neighbourhood plan should not result in less development than specified in other parts of the development plan covering the same area, which aligns with the new (April 2026) basic conditions.

However, we are disappointed Government did not clarify some important practical questions left hanging by the removal of the explicit role of neighbourhood planning in non-strategic site allocations to help meet local housing need. In the response to the 2025 consultation published alongside the new NPPF, it has committed to updating the Planning Practice Guidance. But in the meantime, too many local planning authorities have seen this as a signal to conclude that only their Local Plans should allocate housing sites, no matter how small.

5. Strong protection from speculative development applies for five years, in certain circumstances

Policy S6 carries forward the neighbourhood plan protection previously known as paragraph 14, but on tighter terms. Where a housing proposal conflicts with a neighbourhood plan, the benefits of approving it are likely to be substantially outweighed by the adverse effects, provided two conditions are both met. The plan must have become part of the development plan five years or less before the date of the decision, and it must contain allocations to meet its identified housing requirement.

So a neighbourhood plan that contains no site allocations gets no protection under S6, however recently it was made. Positively, the old condition about the authority's housing land supply has gone, which simplifies matters, but the five-year clock is now the thing to keep track of. For every made plan, the date it came into force is effectively an expiry date on your strongest defence against non-conforming proposals.

This means undertaking a neighbourhood plan review on a five year cycle is no longer a matter of good housekeeping; it is the mechanism by which its full weight is renewed.

6. Housing requirement figures should not be nil, but might come from higher above than your local planning authority

So that S6 can operate, Policy HO2 confirms that local plans should set a housing requirement figure for designated neighbourhood plan areas, and that authorities should avoid setting that figure at nil. Only three exceptions are allowed:

• where the local plan already meets or exceeds the housing need figure for the area,

• where there is a clear and well-evidenced need for no additional housing, or

• where constraints are so substantial as to preclude any additional housing of any kind.

The first is the most important, and we are concerned about how many authorities are already arguing that they are making all the necessary site allocations, as HO3 makes no reference to neighbourhood plans.

7. Settlement boundaries are one of the most important lines on your policy map

Because policy S4 governs development inside settlements and policy S5 governs development outside them, the settlement boundary now determines which regime an application is judged under. Policy S2 requires settlements and their boundaries to be identified at the appropriate plan level, and policy S3 confirms that where a site falls partly inside and partly outside, each part is assessed under the relevant policy before an overall view is reached. Split sites and boundary edges will be argued over more than any other feature of the map.

In some areas settlement boundaries have been put in place by the planning authority in local plans, in others by neighbourhood planning groups on a case by case basis. Either way, if you don't have one, we highly recommend putting one in place through your next neighbourhood plan.

8. Lots of strong protective and community focused policies have survived

It would be easy to read the new Framework as pure liberalisation. It is not:

• Local Green Space survives in policy HC8, still designated by communities through neighbourhood plans, and still carrying protection equivalent to Green Belt. It also appears in the S4 list of impacts capable of tipping the in-settlement balance towards refusal.

• HC6 requires refusal of proposals resulting in the loss of community facilities and services unless an equivalent or better replacement is provided nearby, and

• HC7 does the same for sports facilities, playing fields and recreational land unless there is demonstrable surplus.

Many of these policies benefit from complementary policies in your neighbourhood plan - make sure you are identifying Local Green Spaces and community facilities so it's clear when they do and do not apply.

Beyond that, the Green Belt and historic environment chapters remain substantial, rural exception sites continue under HO10 and the limited circumstances allowing isolated rural homes continue under HO11. Policy HO6 requires a share of the housing requirement to be allocated on small sites, which tends to favour local builders and gentler forms of growth.

Finally, policy DM9 asks authorities to respond positively to community proposals for Neighbourhood Development Orders and Community Right to Build Orders. There is a great deal here that can be productively quoted in a planning application response for a Council that knows where to look or asks for support from a planning consultant.

9. Your neighbourhood plan must be digital

Policy PM6 applies to all plan-makers, and that includes parish and town councils. It requires the use of online tools, methods and templates published by the Secretary of State, asks plan-makers to consider digital planning software, and requires plans to be published in a searchable digital format complying with defined data standards.

This is a real change in what producing a neighbourhood plan involves. A designed PDF and a scanned map will no longer be enough. Policies, allocations and designations will need to exist as structured data that can be read by a machine as well as by a resident, which affects how you commission mapping, how you write policies and how you budget. It also sits neatly alongside the accessibility duties under WCAG that councils already carry for the documents they publish.

Councils starting a plan or a review now should be building to the data standard from the first draft rather than trying to retrofit it after examination. ONH's approach includes neighbourhood plan websites, digital mapping and sharable geospatial policy map files and support with online consultation tools for clients.

10. Transitional arrangements for Local Plans might mean the old NPPF still applies in some cases for the planning authority

The two plan-making systems are still running side by side. Local planning authorities have until 31 December 2026 to submit Local Plans for examination under the existing system and they will be examined under the 2024 NPPF. This means that for some time yet, the Local Plan your neighbourhood plan has to sit alongside may have been prepared against an NPPF framework that no longer exists.

Neighbourhood Plans have been given different transition arrangements. Any plan submitted after 17th August 2026 should comply with the new NPPF. For those already at examination we don’t see the value in withdraw and resubmitting, provided there is no change to the policy intent and substance, though expect the examiner to recommend many development management type policies should be deleted or require modification.