Draft NPPF 2025 Explained: What’s Changed Since 2024 and What It Means for Planning Decisions, Housing Numbers and the Green Belt

Yes — we know you love it. We know you wanted it under the Christmas tree. And the Government, in the spirit of festive excess, has delivered: a brand-new Draft National Planning Policy Framework (December 2025) for consultation. 

So, as you reach for the tape and try not to slice the wrapping paper (or your sanity), here’s the ShepwayVox team’s plain-English guide to what’s changed from the December 2024 NPPF, what it means in practice, and why developers may feel like they’ve woken up to Boxing Day bargains running until March.

First: what the NPPF actually is (in human language)

The NPPF is the Government’s national policy handbook for planning in England: it tells councils how to write local plans and tells planning committees (and inspectors) how to decide applications. It also matters in law because, in general, planning applications must be decided in line with the development plan unless “material considerations” point the other way. (Translation: your local plan is meant to lead — but national policy and other factors can override it.)

The headline change: the new draft splits planning into two rulebooks

In the December 2025 draft, the Government has reorganised the entire document into two distinct tracks:

• Plan-making policies (for writing local plans); and

• National decision-making policies (for deciding planning applications).

That may sound tidy — but here’s the line that does most of the heavy lifting:

“Plan-making policies should not be used when determining applications.” 

In other words, councils will be told: use the plan-making chapters to write your plan — but when a live application lands on the desk, switch to the national decision-making chapters.

That’s not just a restructure. It’s a transfer of gravitational pull.

The quiet but seismic shift: what happens when your local plan conflicts with national policy

The draft then tightens the screws further on what weight local policies get when they clash with the new national decision-making policies.

Under the 2024 framework, decision-makers were told to give “due weight” to policies, depending on how consistent they were with the NPPF (the more consistent, the greater the weight).

Under the 2025 draft, the stakes are raised: where development plan policies are inconsistent with the national decision-making policies, they should be given “very limited weight” — unless they’ve been examined and adopted against this new framework. 

Translation: if your local plan is older, or simply structured differently, it risks being treated as yesterday’s operating manual — even if it’s the plan your community spent years arguing over.

This is the point where “plan-led” starts to look like a slogan printed on a box the rules have been taken out of.

A faster, more standardised local plan — with less room for local invention

The draft doesn’t just divide the rulebook; it also tightens the expected shape and timetable for local plans.

One example: a “new-style” local plan is meant to be prepared and adopted within 30 months, with an early “Gateway 1” self-assessment to show the plan is on track. 

Another: councils are told that the plan’s vision should be expressed through no more than 10 measurable outcomes. 

And then comes another centralising instruction: plans should not “duplicate, substantively restate or modify national decision-making policies.” 

Translation: your local plan is being steered toward allocations, delivery details and local evidence — but the big “what should we approve/refuse?” principles are increasingly being set nationally.

Supplementary plans”: faster policy, fewer democratic choke-points

The draft expands the role of supplementary plans — documents that can be used to add detail and, crucially, can be produced more flexibly than full local plans. The draft explicitly contemplates supplementary plans being used for site allocations, including setting site requirements. 

Translation: more planning content may arrive via quicker routes, with fewer of the heavyweight procedural milestones that typically slow (and scrutinise) a local plan.

Housing numbers: the standard method moves from guidance into the NPPF itself

In the December 2024 NPPF, “local housing need” is defined as the number of homes needed through the standard method set out in national Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) — i.e., outside the NPPF document itself. 

In the December 2025 draft, the calculation is pulled into the framework via Annex D: Housing calculations and supply. 

That annex sets out a clearer national formula — including a baseline of 0.8% of existing housing stock, then an affordability adjustment (using a multiplier of 0.95% for each 1% the affordability ratio is above 5), with a cap of 4.0 times the baseline.

Translation: the Government is not just telling councils “meet your housing need” — it’s embedding the arithmetic more directly into national policy, reducing the room for argument about what the method is.

The Housing Delivery Test: a subtle but important re-wiring

In the 2024 NPPF, if delivery falls below 75% in the Housing Delivery Test, the well-known “presumption in favour of sustainable development” kicks in for decision-making. 

In the draft, the 75% trigger is reframed: where delivery falls below 75%, an “evidenced unmet need for housing is deemed to exist” for applying a specific policy test in the new framework (policy S5(1)(j)), alongside the existing action plan and buffer measures. 

Translation: the consequence remains serious — but the mechanism looks engineered to plug directly into the new national decision-making policy architecture, rather than relying on the older “tilted balance” framing alone.

Density gets teeth — and rail stations become a national planning magnet

Both frameworks push “efficient use of land”, but the draft goes further in places by getting more prescriptive.

The 2024 NPPF encourages minimum density standards in town centres and locations well served by public transport (especially where land is scarce), and says councils should refuse schemes that fail to make efficient use of land.

The 2025 draft keeps that direction — but adds a national density floor near rail: where housing schemes are within walking distance of a railway station, the draft says at least 40 dwellings per hectare should be achieved (or 50 where the station is classed as “well-connected”), and that proposals not making efficient use of land “should be refused.” 

It also creates a clearer national principle supporting certain housing outside settlements where it is near a well-connected station and meets further criteria. 

Translation: “build near transport” is no longer just an aspiration — it’s being hard-coded into national decision-making.

Green Belt, “grey belt”, and the widened net

The 2024 NPPF introduced “grey belt” with an explicit exclusion: it does not include land where other protected designations (the “areas or assets” in footnote 7, such as certain heritage or environmental constraints) would provide a strong reason to refuse or restrict development.

In the 2025 draft, the definition of grey belt drops that explicit exclusion.

At the same time, the draft adds Annex E, setting out a detailed process for Green Belt assessments — including how to subdivide land, evaluate contribution against purposes, and identify grey belt.

And it reinforces a sequencing approach in plan-making: give priority first to previously developed land within the Green Belt, then non-previously-developed grey belt, then other Green Belt locations — as long as the overall pattern is sustainable. 

Translation: the draft looks designed to make Green Belt review more systematic — and to make “grey belt” easier to define and deploy.

Don’t delay, don’t refuse”: a sharper tone in decision-making

Among the new national decision-making policies, the draft takes a noticeably firmer line on how councils handle applications: it says decision-makers should not delay decisions because consultees have not responded within the statutory or agreed period, and should avoid refusing applications that “should clearly be approved”.

Translation: fewer excuses for drift — and a policy nudge toward approval where policy compliance is evident.

The bigger political context: the Planning and Infrastructure Act lands — and the draft NPPF follows

This draft doesn’t land in a vacuum. On 18 December 2025, the Government announced that the Planning and Infrastructure Act received Royal Assent, describing it as a package to “streamline” planning and accelerate housing and infrastructure delivery. 

The Government statement flags measures aimed at speeding up delivery, including changes touching compulsory purchase and nationally significant infrastructure, and an overall push to reduce friction in the system. 

Translation: the Act is the machinery; the draft NPPF is the rulebook that tells that machinery how to move.

What the planners are saying (and when you can respond)

Planning commentator Zack Simons KC, writing on Planoraks, describes the draft as a major re-working and notes the consultation runs until 10 March 2026, with a chunky set of consultation questions (he cites 225). 

Whether you see that as “modernisation” or “centralisation by stealth” will depend on where you sit — but the direction of travel is clear: national decision-making policy is being made more explicit, more operational, and harder to sidestep.

So what has actually changed — in one sentence?

The 2025 draft doesn’t just tweak the NPPF: it rebuilds the hierarchy, drawing a bright line between writing local plans and deciding applications, and then gives the new national decision-making policies a stronger grip on what happens when a proposal hits committee.

And finally…

That’s our festive unwrapping. There will be plenty more to say as consultees, councils, inspectors — and, yes, the legal profession — start stress-testing the wording.

Until then: Merry Christmas to all our readers — and a particularly hearty seasonal greeting to the developers, who may feel they’ve woken up to all their Christmases arriving at once.

If you have a story you think we should be looking at, then please do contact us at: TheShepwayVoxTeam@proton.me – Always Discreet, Always Confidential.

The Shepway Vox Team

Discernibly Different Dissent