A Whirlwind of a Week: Mead in the Court of Appeal, Infrastructure pledges, a Land Use Framework for England, and some other stuff

Well, this has certainly been a week. January is often a busy old month, but the last seven days have felt a bit like being caught in a whirlwind!*

Now that we seem to be in a temporary lull in the action, it feels like a good time recap some recent events.

The Chancellor's speech

On Wednesday 29 January, the Rachel Reeves gave, what felt like a pretty significant, speech setting out the government's growth agenda.

The speech builds on the working papers on Infrastructure and NSIP reform launched last Sunday and commits the government to a wide range of measures intended to boost the economy, including:

• introducing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to parliament in the ‘spring’ and prioritising its progress
• delivering the Lower Thames Crossing
• supporting the redevelopment of Old Trafford
• taking forward the Wrexham and Flintshire Investment Zone
• a new advanced manufacturing and logistics park at East Midlands Airport
• major investment in the Oxford Cambridge growth corridor - particularly focused on transport links, water infrastructure and the provision of new housing
• a new AI Growth Zone in Culham to speed up planning approvals for the rapid build-out of data centres; and
• Committing support for a third runway at Heathrow

The accompanying press release pledged nine new reservoirs in England and confirmed that the Environment Agency had lifted its objections to a new development around Cambridge. This was stated to be “a result of the government working closely with councils and regulators to find creative solutions to unlock growth and address environmental pressures”.

Mead in the Court of Appeal

On Thursday, 30 January, the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment in Mead Realisations Ltd v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & Anor [2025] EWCA Civ 32. 

The judgment is worth reading in full, Court of Appeal decisions are always fascinating, but the key points for the purposes of this post are as follows: 

• the legal status of the Government's planning policies in the NPPF and its guidance in the PPG is basically the same.  (para 33); and 
• There is no legal obstacle to the Secretary of State using the PPG to alter or amend the policies set out in the NPPF (para 53).

These points are well worth keeping in mind, given that we are expecting some significant revisions to the PPG in the immediate future. After all, the government did promise to issue amended guidance on:

• the green belt/ grey belt; and 
• the role of viability assessments in the planning system

early in 2025. Well, technically, they were promised before the end of January, but we should probably cut MHCLG some slack. It has been a fairly busy start to the year, after all. 

Consultation opens on a Land Use Framework for England

On 31 January, DEFRA launched a consultation on establishing a Land Use Framework for England.

The purpose of the Framework, once enacted, is threefold. It is intended to:

• set out the principles that will be applied to policy with land use implications. 
• describe of how policy levers will develop and adapt to support land use change; and 
• release land use data to support better spatial decision making, and the development of tools to support land managers in practice

The timetable for adopting the Framework is ambitious. As can be seen from the diagram below, the Government hopes to have it in place by the summer. 

The consultation is seeking views from all stakeholders on how England's land use requirements might change over the next 25 years, and how the government can facilitate these changes to ensure that we successfully balance our needs for food production, nature recovery, new homes, infrastructure and accessible green spaces. 

It also includes a specific question around skills and resourcing gaps. Question 21 asks:

 "What gaps in land management capacity or skills do you anticipate as part of the land use transition?  Please include any suggestions to address these gaps

• Development and planning
• Farming 
• Environment and forestry 
• Recreation and access 
• Other (please specify)"

The proposals are too nuanced to summarise in a single post, but the consultation document does contain some interesting statistics and forecasts that are worth paying attention to:

• 85% of England can be classed as rural. 67% of England’s land is agricultural, made up of 38% arable land and 29% grassland.
• However, 83% of the England's population live in urban areas (settlements of more than 10,000 inhabitants).
• We will likely need to take about 9% of our agricultural land out of agricultural use, for environmental and climate benefits, if we are to meet our nature recovery targets. i.e. for the restoration and maintenance of peat-forming and peat dependent habitats; creation of woodland; creation / restoration of coastal and lowland heathland habitats. 
• By contrast the scale of land use change required to deliver 1.5 million new homes is relatively small - it is estimated at about a 0.2% change by the end of the Parliament, and a c. 1.1% change if housebuilding were continued at the same rate to 2050.
• The land area taken by all key utilities across England in 2022, including solar and wind farms, power stations, water works, gas works, and refuse disposal places, covered just 0.2% of land.

The impact of the forecasted required changes can be seen in the following table**:

The consultation runs until 25 April 2025 and responses can be submitted here. 

And finally….

If that were not enough, the last seven days has also seen:

• The publication of updated compulsory purchase guidance to “reflect legislative changes to the Certificate of Appropriate Alternative Development process (introduced through section 189 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023) which came into effect on 31 January 2025”. The revised guidance can be found here; and 
• Yet more grey belt appeal decisions being published. Including:
  • Appeal Ref APP/F2360/W/24/3349936 - an appeal for a single dwelling, which was refused (despite being grey belt) as there was no evidence that the LPA had a shortage of housing land. As such, the site did not meet the para 155 tests as there was no “demonstrable need”;  and 
  • Linked Appeals APP/T3725/W/24/3347315 and 3347316 - these related to two linked solar park appeals. The sites were not held to meet the para 155 requirements (as they were held to encroach on the countryside to such an extent that it would fundamentally undermine the purposes of the remaining green belt as a whole); but the appeals were nonetheless granted as very special circumstances were found to exist. 

I told you it had been a whirlwind of a week…. I can't wait to see what February has in store for us!

*An apt metaphor for someone spending her afternoon putting on a “home cinema” showing of the Wizard of Oz - complete with popcorn, pic 'n mix and blanket forts.

** all of these images have been lifted from the consultation document itself