What’s on the Horizon for Infrastructure Projects in 2026?

2026 is poised to see some significant changes come into effect in consenting major infrastructure projects. This update explores what to look out for.

1. Introduction

1.1. 2025 was another busy year in the world of consenting for major infrastructure projects with key changes being introduced to facilitate delivery of the Government’s promise to streamline infrastructure planning. The year ahead is poised to see some major changes and updates come into effect. We have summarised below the key changes and reforms and what more to look out for during 2026.

2. Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025

2.1. As trailed in both our Planning in England 2025: changes on the horizon blog and Planning for 2025: What is on the horizon for nationally significant infrastructure projects?, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) made its way through parliament during 2025 and received royal assent as the Planning and Infrastructure Act (PIA) 2025 on 18 December 2025. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 9) and Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (Commencement No. 1 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2025 were also made on 18 December. The Regulations brought certain provisions into effect as of 19 December and set out a number of provisions which will come into force on 18 February 2026 and 1 April 2026. However, for the majority of the provisions, we wait with bated breath for further updates on the timings for relevant commencement orders and accompanying guidance. Key provisions affecting the Development Consent Order (DCO) regime are as follows:

1. Section 1 requires that National Policy Statements (NPSs) are updated at least every five years rather than whenever the Secretary of State sees fit. This section comes into force on 18 February 2026;
2. Section 4 will enable the Secretary of State to issue a direction disapplying the requirement for development consent for specified development;
3. Section 5 will remove the pre-application duty to consult under section 42 of the Planning Act 2008;
4. Section 7 requires the Secretary of State to publish a statement of reasons for any decision not to accept an application for development consent and will amend section 55 of the Planning Act to account for the removal of statutory consultation requirements;
5. Section 12 will remove the distinction between non-material and material changes to DCOs with a single change process to apply to any type of change. This will require secondary legislation and updates to guidance; but will make post consent changes more aligned to the treatment of changes to an application during Examination following updates to guidance and PINS advice in 2024;
6. Section 13 restricts the number of attempts to bring legal challenges to major infrastructure projects, for meritless cases, down to one rather than three. This section will come into force on 18 February 2026;
7. Section 30 empowers the Secretary of State to make new regulations relating to planning applications and consents for wind projects that may affect the operation of seismic array systems for defence purposes;
8. Part 3 of the Act introduces powers for Natural England to produce environmental delivery plans (EDPs) which will allow developers to pay a ‘nature restoration levy’ instead of directly mitigating relevant certain environmental impacts. The provisions relating to the production of EDPs by Natural England were brought into force on 19 December 2025 and Natural England has already notified the Government of their intention to prepare sixteen EDPs for nutrient catchments and seven for great crested newts so progress on these is definitely one to watch during 2026. Whilst the architecture of EDPs was originally developed with the housing industry in mind, there are also potential strategic advantages to developers of DCO projects. It is worth noting that the Five Estuaries DCO which was made on 16 December 2025 includes provision to allow for payment into a nature restoration fund established by Government, including any under the PIA, as an alternative farmland bird compensation measure should that option becomes available;
9. Various amendments have been made to the compulsory purchase regime which are also relevant in the DCO context, in particular, to the exercise of compulsory acquisition powers.  The Regulations set out that some of these came into force on 19 December 2025 or will come into effect on 18 February 2026. We have written a separate update on the CPO implications of the Act here.

2.2. We published blogs in March 2025 and December 2025 on the PIB which provide further commentary relating to these changes.

3. Consultation on reform to the statutory consultee system

3.1. Whilst the PIA 2025 includes provisions to remove the duty to consult, the consultation on reform to the statutory consultee system confirms that there will be statutory guidance setting out strong expectations that developers undertake consultation and engagement prior to submitting an application. The expectation is therefore that the Government will consult on and publish its guidance before enacting the relevant provisions in the PIA 2025. Whilst the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government’s letter to Local Authority Leaders and Metro Mayors in England dated 16 December 2025 indicates that these reforms will come into force in “late spring”, details of transitional provisions for how “in preparation” projects will be affected by the changes, are still not clear.  The market expectation is that the new provisions will be linked to the date of the application, but the current uncertainty on this is unwelcome.

3.2. Separately, in the consultation, the Government also confirmed its commitment to introduce secondary legislation to enable cost recovery for relevant services provided by host local authorities in relation to DCO applications. This is a further reform which we expect to see introduced this year.

3.3. With the PIA now through the parliamentary process and promise of new statutory guidance on pre-application consultation, it begs the question as to whether we will now see updates to other statutory guidance given that the National Infrastructure Planning Guidance Portal still indicates that numerous guidance documents would be updated in Autumn/Winter 2024.  We can only keep our fingers crossed for more activity on this front this year.  It would certainly be helpful given how out of date a lot of the Guidance now is.

4. National Policy Statement Updates

4.1. In December 2024, the Government’s ‘Plan for Change’ stated that all relevant policy statements would be updated by summer 2025.  Whilst the timetable hasn’t run entirely to schedule, the Government has been progressing updates to a number of NPSs.

Energy NPS: EN-1, EN-3 and EN-5

4.2. Following consultation in 2025, draft versions of EN-1 (Overarching NPS for Energy, EN-3 (NPS for Renewable Energy Infrastructure) and EN-5 (NPS for Electricity Networks Infrastructure) were published on 13 November 2025 alongside the Government’s response to consultation.  These updated NPSs were designated on 6 January 2026 following their 21-sitting day ‘consideration period’. 

4.3. The updated NPSs will have effect in relation to applications for development consent accepted for examination after designation. The Government’s response to consultation confirmed that for applications accepted for examination before the NPS designation, the 2024 NPs will continue to underpin planning decisions with regards to policy compliance. However, this will not prevent the 2025 versions from being treated as material considerations as confirmed in the recent Five Estuaries DCO decision. Therefore anyone involved in preparing and submitting a DCO application for energy infrastructure or participating in an Examination in 2026 will need to be fully up to speed on the revised NPSs.

4.4. To read more about the content of these NPSs, please see Cathryn Tracey’s earlier blog.

Nuclear Energy Generation NPS

4.5. In early November 2025, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) published the new NPS for Nuclear Energy Generation (EN-7). There were no substantive changes to the content from the draft policy published in February 2025 for consultation. On 18 December 2025, DESNZ confirmed the NPS is now in effect.

4.6. EN-7 is the first NPS to specifically accommodate nuclear generation technologies other than traditional gigawatt-scale nuclear power plants, as it includes small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors. EN-7 also departs from the previous NPS by allowing developers to identify and promote sites based on siting criteria, rather than locations designated in the policy statement. Thirdly, the NPS has no fixed deadline for when it stops applying, unlike the previous policy statement that only applied to sites capable of deployment by the end of 2025.

4.7. Looking to the year ahead, Great British Energy – Nuclear has confirmed that Wylfa, on the coast of Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in North Wales will host the first Small Modular Reactors.

4.8. If you want to read more about this topic, we published two blogs in February 2025 and November 2025 on EN-7.

4.9. In relation to nuclear energy, you should also be aware that the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce was set up in 2025 to explore how the regulation of safety, environmental, planning and other areas of nuclear could be improved. They published their report on 4 November 2025. Our blog sets out a summary of the recommendations on this topic. The principle of the recommendations have been accepted by the Prime Minister, who has committed to implementing them within two years, subject to legislative timelines on elements requiring primary legislation. The Secretary of State has committed to a full implementation plan within three months. This will be another update to look out for early this year.

Ports NPS

4.10. In June 2025, a revised draft NPS for Ports was published to accommodate “changes in circumstance and advances in policy” and strengthened policy support for decarbonisation, BNG, marine net gain and improved air quality standards. It was consulted on until July 2025. In November 2025, a report on the NPS was published by the transport committee, responding to issues raised through the consultation and providing recommendations to the Government. The NPS for Ports is yet to be formally replaced but publication of this new NPS is certainly one to watch this year.

Data Centres NPS

4.11. The publication of the draft Infrastructure Planning (Business or Commercial Projects) (Amendments) Regulations 2025 on 15 October 2025 paves the way for data centres to be brought into the NSIP regime. These Regulations were approved by the House of Lords in November and await a final decision by the Secretary of State. 

4.12. The Regulations will allow developers of data centres to apply for a section 35 direction, so that an application can be treated as a development requiring development consent. 

4.13. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is preparing the new NPS for data centres to set out the parameters, thresholds and factors indicating if a data centre project is of national significance so this will be key to understanding the scope of the amendments.

4.14 For more information, we recently published blogs on data centres in October 2025 and December 2025.

5. Other Developments

Onshore Wind and Solar Development Thresholds

5.1. The Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025, which came into force on 31 December 2025, amends the Planning Act 2008 to bring onshore wind into the DCO regime. It also sets the threshold for considering solar and onshore wind projects NSIPs from 50MW to 100MW, meaning that local authorities can make decisions for onshore wind and solar projects under 100MW.

5.2. There are transitional provisions under articles 4 to 10 in relation to solar farms that were already being considered under the NSIP regime when the Order came into force, and onshore wind farms that were already being considered in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 c.8 process when the Order came into force.

5.3. There are also transitional provisions to ensure that projects which have already started the process in one legislative regime are not prejudiced by the change made by this Order by being moved to a different legislative regime.

Water DCOs

5.4. In September 2025, we published a blog on the implications of the Cunliffe review on planning and consenting of water resource projects. The Cunliffe review was the largest review of the water industry since being privatised in 1989. Although the Government stated the White Paper outlining the vision for the future of the water sector would be published this year, this hasn’t come to fruition so publication of the White Paper, alongside the Water Reform Bill, are ones to look out for in early 2026.

5.5. The Independent Water Commission Summary Report recommended that water infrastructure projects should be considered critical national priority status in the National Policy Statements, and that the threshold for water NSIPs could be amended, streamlining the consenting for larger schemes and reduce reliance on ministerial intervention. It also recommended a review and update of the Wastewater National Policy Statement, which has not been updated since 2012.

5.6. On top of this, Section 3 of the PIA will (once it is in force) enable water NSIPs to be carried out by third parties appointed by water undertakers, as well as water undertakers themselves.

Grid reforms

5.7. In last year’s blog, we provided an overview of the implications of the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which put forward reform of the grid connection process.

5.8. On 8 December 2025, Ofgem announced that the new regime for transmission and distribution network operations would be worked up in 2026, with the aim of slashing delays and connecting clean power. It has launched a consultation which runs until 27 February 2026 on further proposed changes to the regulatory framework and decisions for implementation.

5.9. Chapter 2 of the PIA is set to facilitate these grid reforms as part of the shift to a ‘first ready, first connected’ model.

Biodiversity Net Gain

5.10. BNG and the way it should be treated and factored into applications for DCOs continued to be a complex hot topic during examinations and decisions made in 2025. The complexity arises due to the ongoing BNG related legislation, policy and guidance vacuum in which applications for DCOs operate.  However, there should be light at the end of the tunnel this year.  Defra consulted on BNG for NSIPs between May 2025 and July 2025 stating their intention that BNG will become mandatory for NSIPs from May 2026.

5.11. On 16 December 2025, the Government published a revised NPPF for consultation. Some key changes to BNG being consulted on are:

1. Introducing an area-based exemption for smaller sites (up to 0.2 hectares), alongside consulting rapidly on an additional targeted exemption for residential brownfield development (testing ranges up to 2.5 hectares);
2. Introducing measures to make it easier, quicker, and cheaper to deliver BNG offsite which will benefit medium-sized development;
3. Streamlining standards on energy efficiency and BNG to give builders certainty on plans for new homes;
4. Reforming BNG to make the process simpler for SME developers while maintaining nature recovery at scale.

5.12. A full consultation response and implementation timeline is expected to be published this year, alongside a consultation response on implementing BNG for NSIPs.

Marine Recovery Fund

5.13. Moving into 2026, offshore wind developers with projects that impact Marine Protected Areas will need to be aware of the Marine Recovery Funds Regulations 2025 (SI 2025/1230) (MRF Regulations) which came into force on 17 December 2025. Supporting guidance was also published on this date including guidance on how developers can apply to use the Marine Recovery Fund (MRF) to deliver strategic compensation.   MRFs will support the Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and are part of the Offshore Wind Environmental Improvement Package (OWEIP).

GB Energy

5.14. The Great British Energy Act received Royal Assent on 15May 2025, which established GB Energy as a publicly-owned energy company.

5.15. In December 2025, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) published their statement of strategic priorities for GB Energy in 2025, with the following priorities:

1. Priority one: GBE Local. This includes the rollout of a new era of community and local energy projects across the UK in the near term, whilst developing longer-term, scalable models to unlock the value of local energy. This relates to smaller, more modular electricity generators such as solar PV and wind;
2. Priority two: Onshore Energy. Unlock the energy potential of public land. This includes solar PV, BESS and onshore wind as critical generation technologies;
3. Priority three: Offshore Energy. Unlock the next frontier in offshore energy: deeper waters and the regional industrial growth it can deliver. GBE lists floating offshore wind to unlock deployment in offshore locations too deep for fixed foundations.

5.16. Looking forward, GBE will publish a joint Local Power Plan with DESNZ this year outlining the shared long-term vision for local and community energy.

2026 looks set to be another busy year for infrastructure consenting with further reform and consultations expected as the year progresses. Our planning and compulsory purchase team regularly acts for promoters of major infrastructure projects and have a wealth of experience between them. Please contact Julian Boswall, Partner, or Laura Fuller, Senior Associate, for more information.