However you have taken the news about Labour winning the 2024 General Election there will undoubtedly be some changes to the Planning system and how things are perceived. Below are a list of 20 promises made by the Labour Party. Who knows how or when these will be implemented but they could mean big things to certain people.

1. A pledge to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. The party reiterated its commitment, first made at last year’s annual party conference in Liverpool, to delivering 1.5 million homes, equating to delivering 300,000 homes per year over the next Parliament.

2. Labour committed to “preserving the green belt” but said it would take a “strategic approach” to releasing “lower quality ‘grey belt’ land”. Labour stated it was “committed to preserving the green belt”, but would take a “more strategic approach” to the release of green belt land “without changing its purpose or general extent”. As has been previously reported, the party said it would do this via the release of “lower quality ‘grey belt’ land”, while maintaining a “brownfield first approach”.

3. A pledge to build new towns. In the manifesto, the party reiterated a pledge first made in October last year to build “a new generation of new towns”. These “alongside urban extensions and regeneration projects” would “form part of a series of large-scale new communities across England”, the party said.

4. A promise to deliver more social and affordable housing via ‘strengthened’ planning obligations. The manifesto also included a commitment to “deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation”. The document said Labour would do this by “strengthen[ing] planning obligations to ensure new developments provide more affordable homes” and “support[ing] councils and housing associations to build their capacity and make a greater contribution to affordable housing supply”. It does not set a target for how many affordable or social homes the party will help deliver.

5. Labour pledged to give regional mayors and combined authorities more planning powers. Launching the manifesto this morning, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would give combined authorities “new planning powers along with new freedoms and flexibilities to make better use of grant funding”. The manifesto said Labour would give combined authorities “new planning powers along with new freedoms and flexibilities to make better use of grant funding”.

6. A commitment to introduce "cross-boundary strategic planning" and a requirement for combined and mayoral authorities to strategically plan for housing. Starmer also said that his party would introduce “effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning”. The manifesto said Labour would “require all combined and mayoral authorities to strategically plan for housing growth in their areas”.

7. A promise to sanction local planning authorities that fail to update their local plans. The manifesto includes a promise to “take tough action to ensure that planning authorities have up-to-date local plans”.

8. A pledge to reverse the Conservatives’ December 2023 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) changes. Labour reiterated a previously-announced pledge to “immediately update the National Policy Planning Framework to undo damaging Conservative changes, including restoring mandatory housing targets”.

9. A pledge to “reform and strengthen” the NPPF’s presumption in favour of sustainable development. Labour pledged to “reform and strengthen the presumption in favour of sustainable development” in its bid to “get Britain building again”. If applied, the presumption penalty renders a council’s housing supply policies out of date and currently applies to authorities with poor housing delivery records, as measured by the government’s annual housing delivery test, or with an insufficient pipeline of deliverable housing supply.

10. A commitment to appoint 300 new planning officers. Also included in the manifesto is its commitment to appoint 300 new planning officers, which the party said would be funded by £20 million of revenue from increasing stamp duty on purchases of residential property by non-UK residents by one per cent. This is £5 million lower than the £25 million referenced by shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook earlier this week.

11. The party pledged to help deliver homes “affected by nutrient neutrality”. Labour said it would “implement solutions to unlock the building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality without weakening environmental protections”.

12. A commitment to make homes that are “high quality” and places that are “climate resilient”. The manifesto further pledged to “take steps to ensure we are building more high-quality, well-designed, and sustainable homes and creating places that increase climate resilience and promote nature recovery”.

13. A promise to abolish compulsory purchase order (CPO) “hope value”. Labour also confirmed its plan to reform compulsory purchase compensation rules, to ensure that for “specific types of development schemes, landowners are awarded fair compensation rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission”.

14. Labour has shelved a proposal to introduce a “community right to appeal”. The manifesto did not include a proposal floated last October to introduce a “community right to appeal” – a policy specifically ruled out in this week’s Conservative manifesto.

15. A pledge to develop a ten-year infrastructure strategy. The party said it would develop a ten-year infrastructure strategy, which will “guide investment plans and give the private sector certainty about the project pipeline”.

16. A promise to create a new infrastructure government agency. Labour further pledged to “create a new National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, bringing together existing bodies, to set strategic infrastructure priorities and oversee the design, scope, and delivery of projects”. The strategy would also be aligned with the party’s proposed “industrial strategy and regional development priorities”, including “improving rail connectivity across the north of England”, the manifesto said.

17. A pledge to “forge ahead” with new transport infrastructure. Labour further promised to “make the changes we need” to “forge ahead with new roads, railways, reservoirs, and other nationally significant infrastructure”.

18. A commitment to set out new national policy statements and “benefits” for communities affected by development. The party pledged to “set out new national policy statements, make major projects faster and cheaper by slashing red tape, and build support for developments by ensuring communities directly benefit”. The manifesto does not specify what kinds of development these new NPSs would cover.

19. A pledge to update national planning policy to help deliver laboratories, digital infrastructure and gigafactories. Labour promised to update national planning policy to ensure the planning system meets the needs of a modern economy, making it easier to build laboratories, digital infrastructure, and gigafactories.

20. Mayors will have a “duty to promote and grow the use of rail”. The manifesto also said that mayors would have a role in designing the services in their areas. It stated: “There will be a duty to promote and grow the use of rail freight. Open access operators are an important part of the rail system and will have an ongoing role.”

Other non–planning promises included a pledge to bring British railways under “public ownership”. Labour said it would do this as and when “contracts with existing operators expire or are broken through a failure to deliver, without costing taxpayers a penny in compensation”.