Reform’s conference in Birmingham handed the planning world something it has not had much of from that direction before: a document you can actually argue with.
The Planning Teal Paper landed as conference got under way and quickly became a major talking point in the housing sessions.
The mood was pragmatic on the floor and there was a straightforward acceptance that Britain needs to build more homes. Dan Thomas MS, Reform’s Leader in Wales and former Leader of Barnet Council, talked about villages along the mainline into London dying on their feet and needing new homes to survive.
That is not really a brownfield argument. It seems more of a case for development in places where greenfield land will inevitably be part of the answer.
That tension runs through the Teal Paper. There is plenty that is overtly pro-development, but also important questions about how the proposals would work in practice. Here are my five key takeaways:
1. Remove the targets, give councils more control?
Perhaps the biggest change is Reform’s proposal to scrap nationally imposed housing land-supply targets and let councils determine their own greenfield requirement, after assessing brownfield capacity, household formation and demographic projections under its proposed net-negative migration policy. Greenfield schemes would then have to show there is insufficient brownfield land to meet local need.
The attraction is greater local control over where growth happens but national policy and appeal risk currently do a lot of heavy lifting. Three recent South West committees illustrate the point: 105 homes in East Devon, up to 200 in B&NES and 58 in Wiltshire were all approved despite significant local opposition.
Reform’s approach could give councils greater freedom. The question is whether that freedom still produces enough homes where development is politically difficult.
2. Cut the contributions, but who picks up the bill?
Reform’s brownfield proposes removing CIL and other Section 106 financial payments from brownfield residential development, alongside a wider package aimed at stripping cost and delay out of urban schemes.
The viability argument is easy to understand. Remediation, infrastructure contributions and regulation can turn a promising urban scheme into one that simply does not stack up.
But infrastructure requirements do no not disappear. Junctions need upgrading. Crossings need building. Public realm, schools, books for local libraries and other services still must be provided.
Developer contributions are not simply a tax on development. They can be the mechanism that allows works beyond the site boundary to happen and can provide communities with tangible benefits from growth. So, if Section 106 and CIL largely disappear on brownfield, who pays instead?
3. Affordable housing is a significant trade-off
This may prove one of the most consequential proposals.
Reform would remove affordable housing requirements from brownfield schemes across most of England. Only London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol would retain a requirement, set at 5% on-site for developments of 20 homes or more, with an alternative off-site payment. Greenfield schemes of ten homes or more would face a 15% requirement.
Again, the objective is clear: tip the viability equation decisively towards brownfield. However, that shifts responsibility for affordable delivery elsewhere. The paper points to Reform’s separate commitment to deliver an additional 50,000 affordable social homes a year and argues that reducing brownfield costs would help deliver them more cheaply.
The question for councils is what happens in the meantime if one of their main routes to securing affordable homes through private development is substantially reduced.
4. Scrap strategic planning, but who plans across boundaries?
Reform also wants to abolish spatial development strategies, including the London Plan, and replace the current system with shorter, five-year, map-based local plans that must be prepared within a year. There is an attractive simplicity to that, but housing markets, transport networks and major infrastructure rarely stop neatly at a council boundary. Large developments can depend on roads, rail, utilities or employment areas spread across several authorities.
So there is a practical question beneath the drive to remove another layer of planning: if strategic plans disappear, what replaces their coordinating role? Interestingly, the paper simultaneously proposes making national planning policy statutory and allowing it to prevail over inconsistent legacy local plans.
It is therefore not simply a story of powers moving downwards.
5. The brownfield gamble is much bigger than planning reform
Perhaps the boldest aspect of the paper is how far Reform is prepared to go to change the economics of brownfield development.
Alongside a strong presumption in favour of approval, expanded permitted development rights and the proposed removal of BNG, Habitats Regulations and Environmental Statement requirements in specified cases, Reform is considering ten-year exemptions from stamp duty, rental income tax and capital gains tax on new brownfield homes, as well as abolishing landfill tax on brownfield development.
That is not tinkering. It is an attempt to make brownfield so much more appealing that developers change where they build. If it works, it could unlock sites that have sat dormant for years.
The bigger question is whether it can unlock enough of them to compensate for a planning system that would make greenfield development harder at the same time.
The question Reform still needs to answer
There is plenty here the development industry will recognise: viability problems, regulatory accumulation, slow plan-making and urban sites that do not move.
There is also a clear philosophy: make brownfield easier, reduce development costs, simplify planning and give local areas more control over greenfield growth.
These remain proposals, with Reform consulting industry before publishing its planning policy in 2027.
The real test will be whether its ambitions for more homes, stronger town centres, less bureaucracy and greater local control can all be delivered together.