The New Local Plan System Is Live: A 30-Month Operating Guide for Land Teams

England’s new local-plan system changes more than the timetable. It changes when evidence appears, when an authority must show its hand and when a promoted site can move from a long list to a draft allocation.

The commercial consequence is straightforward: a land team that still watches only for a Call for Sites or a familiar Regulation 18 consultation will see important signals late.

As at 2 August 2026, the statutory framework is live, but parts of the supporting government guidance remain draft and the December 2025 draft NPPF has not yet replaced the current adopted NPPF. That distinction matters. The process below is live; some policy detail may still change.

What is live now

The new local-plan system came into force on 25 March 2026. It is underpinned by the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026.

Government guidance says local planning authorities must prepare a single local plan and should adopt it within 30 months. The 30 months do not begin when the authority first discusses a plan. They begin when the authority publishes its Gateway 1 self-assessment summary.

That creates two different periods for a land team to monitor:

1. the preparation period before Gateway 1; and

2. the formal 30-month plan process after Gateway 1.

Treating them as one long consultation cycle loses the most useful early signals.

Before month one: the authority gets ready

Before Gateway 1, an authority must publish a plan timetable, give notice that it intends to commence plan-making and run a scoping consultation. The notice must be published at least four months before Gateway 1, and the timetable must be published before or on the same day as the notice.

This is the first operational trigger. It gives a land team a visible sequence before the formal clock starts:

• plan timetable published;

• notice to commence published;

• scoping consultation opened and closed;

• Gateway 1 self-assessment published.

The scoping consultation is not a disguised allocation stage. It asks what the plan should contain and how engagement should work. But it is still a useful point to test whether the authority’s early vision, evidence needs and spatial options properly recognise your settlement or corridor.

Gateway 1: the clock starts

Gateway 1 is a self-assessment by the local planning authority, not an assessment by the Planning Inspectorate. The authority must show its readiness across five areas: timetable; project management and governance; engagement; anticipated plan content; and the start of Strategic Environmental Assessment work. The Gateway 1 guidance explains the required summary.

For a promoter, the summary is useful because it should expose the authority’s intended scope, engagement approach and evidence programme. It is less useful as a label on its own. “Gateway 1 passed” should never be the whole update in a pipeline.

Record the date, source URL, plan area, stated evidence gaps, relevant spatial issues and the next published milestone.

Months 1 to 23: the plan and evidence take shape

The government’s 30-month process overview places the main plan-preparation work in months 1 to 23. During this period the authority develops its vision, strategy, evidence and site choices, then consults on proposed plan content and evidence before Gateway 2.

For land teams, this is where a simple “submitted to Call for Sites” status becomes inadequate. A site can be:

• identified in Stage 1;

• assessed in Stage 2;

• considered but not selected in Stage 3; or

• confirmed or rejected with a recorded rationale in Stage 4.

Those are different planning positions and demand different actions. Our earlier guide on SHELAA, allocation and permission explains why the labels should not be collapsed.

The practical discipline is to keep the authority’s evidence and your site evidence aligned. If the authority records an access concern, do not merely upload a highways note. Record which concern it answers, the date of the authority’s source, what has changed and what remains unresolved.

Gateway 2 to adoption: fewer places to hide

Gateway 2 introduces observations and advice from an appointed assessor after consultation on proposed plan content and evidence. The authority then prepares and consults on the proposed local plan. Gateway 3 tests readiness for examination, followed by examination and adoption.

The compressed sequence makes late evidence more expensive. A document that arrives after the authority has settled its spatial strategy may still matter, but it has a harder job to change the reasoning already recorded.

That does not mean commissioning every technical report on day one. It means sequencing evidence against the decision it needs to influence.

The operating record every promoted site now needs

For each authority, keep one live plan record containing:

Then link each promoted site to that authority record. Do not duplicate the same timetable dates across individual opportunity notes; that creates six versions of the truth.

A practical first pass this week

Start with the authorities covering your live and dormant sites.

1. Confirm which plan-making system applies.

2. Save the current timetable and its publication date.

3. Check for a notice to commence and Gateway 1 summary.

4. Identify the current site-selection stage.

5. Compare the authority’s latest reasoning with your evidence register.

6. Set one dated next action per site.

The new system is designed to be faster and more visible. That only helps a land team if the published sequence reaches the opportunity record.

For the monitoring layer behind this, see The Planning Watchlist Every Land Team Should Maintain.