Based on the UK Planning & Infrastructure Bill (2025), the most significant and long-overdue changes — those both developers and the UK Government argue are essential for growth — fall into five main reform areas:

1. Streamlining Major Infrastructure Planning

What’s changing:
The Bill reforms the Planning Act 2008 to simplify and accelerate Development Consent Orders (DCOs) for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs).

• Removes outdated pre-application consultation burdens.
• Sets statutory decision deadlines and empowers the Secretary of State to extend them only in limited circumstances.
• Introduces a simplified process for amending DCOs and reduces the scope for judicial review.

Why long overdue:
Developers have long complained that the UK’s infrastructure approval system is “glacial” compared to competitors like Germany or the Netherlands. The government frames this as a pro-growth reform that cuts red tape and legal delays, unlocking energy, transport, and housing investment more predictably.

2. Overhaul of the National Policy Statement (NPS) Regime

What’s changing:

• The Secretary of State must review and update every NPS at least every five years.
• Parliament must be notified of any delays and their reasons.

Why long overdue:
Some NPS documents (like for energy and aviation) hadn’t been updated in over a decade, leaving projects reliant on obsolete environmental and capacity assumptions. Mandatory reviews restore policy certainty for investors.

3. Integration of Environmental Recovery and Development

What’s changing:
The Bill introduces Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and a Nature Restoration Levy on developers.

• Developers can pay the levy instead of navigating multiple conservation consents.
• Natural England will reinvest proceeds into biodiversity and habitat restoration.

Why long overdue:
It modernises the fragmented environmental licensing system (under the Habitats and Wildlife Acts) by offering a “one-stop” offset mechanism. Government calls it a way to “align growth with green recovery” — appealing to both business and environmental stakeholders.

4. Empowering Development Corporations

What’s changing:
The Bill strengthens Development and Mayoral Development Corporations under the Localism Act 2011 and New Towns Act 1981.

• They must now promote sustainable design, climate mitigation, and infrastructure delivery powers similar to New Towns bodies.
• These corporations will be allowed to manage transport and land assembly functions directly.

Why long overdue:
Government says this revives a powerful local growth tool unused since the 1980s. Developers view it as a way to unlock “stalled regeneration zones” with simplified governance.

5. Reforming Compulsory Purchase and Digitalisation

What’s changing:

• New electronic service and notice systems, replacing print-only newspaper requirements.
• Faster vesting declarations and flexibility on home loss payments and temporary possession rights.
• Ministers gain power to appoint inspectors directly to accelerate acquisitions.

Why long overdue:
The compulsory purchase process has been seen as slow and legally cumbersome since the 1960s. Modernising it supports infrastructure assembly and urban redevelopment, a key enabler for housing-led growth.

Government’s Framing

The Bill is promoted as “pro-growth, pro-investment, and pro-environment” — removing duplication between planning, environmental, and transport law. Ministers call it “a once-in-a-generation reform” to fix long-standing bureaucratic blockages that delay private capital deployment in housing, energy, and transport.

How and where the UK Planning & Infrastructure Bill applies to Northern Ireland, and what parts do not extend there:

🟩 Provisions That Apply (Directly or Indirectly) to Northern Ireland

1. Electricity Infrastructure (Energy System Reforms)

• The Bill extends certain electricity network and storage provisions UK-wide, including licence modification powers, connection reforms, and long-duration electricity storage schemes.
• Northern Ireland is covered through UK-wide amendments to the Electricity Act 1989, which remains the legislative framework for energy regulation across the UK.
• The new rules on strategic network connections, storage, and grid access planning will therefore influence cross-border projects and market integration with GB.

Effect: Developers in Northern Ireland could benefit from faster UK grid upgrades and interconnection investment.

2. Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and Nature Restoration Levy

• Although Natural England is the implementing body in England, the framework for environmental offsetting and biodiversity accounting may later be adopted or mirrored by DAERA (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) under devolved powers.
• The Bill does not directly legislate for NI’s environment agencies but creates a UK precedent for a levy-based offset model, which could later be harmonised across devolved nations for consistency in planning and mitigation frameworks.

Effect: The principles could influence NI’s Planning Act (NI) 2011 reforms and DAERA’s biodiversity strategies.

3. Compulsory Purchase and Land Assembly

• Certain procedural and digital modernisation measures (e.g. electronic notices, online publication, expedited vesting declarations) amend UK Acts like the Land Compensation Act 1961, which have partial or analogous effect in Northern Ireland.
• In practice, DfI (NI) may choose to mirror these via secondary legislation or by alignment through the Land Development Values (Compensation) (NI) Order 1973.

Effect: Sets a model NI can replicate to speed up land acquisition for major transport or regeneration schemes.

4. Transport Infrastructure—Cross-border Relevance

• Although the Highways Act 1980 and Transport and Works Act 1992 apply mainly to England and Wales, the Bill explicitly extends some modernising amendments to Scotland and includes cross-border recognition provisions.
• NI’s DfI Roads Service could voluntarily align procedures for major transport orders, particularly for transnational or intermodal projects (e.g. energy corridors, A75/A5 logistics links).

🟥 Provisions That Do Not Apply to Northern Ireland

1. Town and Country Planning System (Part 2)

• All planning decision, fee, and delegation reforms (e.g. increased planning fees, mandatory training, delegation of functions) apply only in England.
• Northern Ireland operates under its own Planning Act (NI) 2011 and local plan system, administered by the 11 councils and the DfI.
• Therefore, there are no direct changes to NI’s planning permissions, development control, or appeals processes.

2. Spatial Development Strategies

• The new “strategic planning boards” and “spatial development strategies” are England-only mechanisms under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
• NI’s Regional Development Strategy 2035 (RDS) remains its own spatial planning framework, independent of these reforms.

3. Development Corporations

• The strengthened Development Corporation powers (e.g. Mayoral Development Corporations) apply only in England.
• Northern Ireland does not have directly equivalent legislation; regeneration remains under DfC and local councils, with no mayoral or corporation model.

4. Environmental Delivery Implementation

• While the Bill creates a UK-wide framework, only England’s Natural England gains direct administrative duties.
• NI would need its own implementing legislation or Memorandum of Understanding to adopt the Nature Restoration Levy.

⚖️ In Summary

In essence:
The Bill does not directly change Northern Ireland’s planning law, but it creates models and precedents for faster approvals, streamlined environmental mitigation, and modernised compulsory purchase that the NI Executive could choose to emulate.