The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 represents a turning point in governance, providing essential support for reform of the planning system.
For far too long, projects have been stuck in backlogs in planning departments, often losing viability by the day.
Designed with the ambition to help speed up housing and infrastructure delivery through a more streamlined planning process, the Act is seen as a key enabler for the UK government to meet its 1.5m new homes and infrastructure targets.
Rider Levett Bucknall (RLB) welcomes these reforms, particularly the Connections Reform Part 1, which addresses the Transmission Entry Capacity (TEC) elements of the current bottleneck, and Part 2, which is designed to address the demand queue, as a way to prioritise deliverability.
Grid connection reform long overdue
The grid connection queue, which was approximately 750GW, had been distorted by speculative 'zombie' projects, which held capacity but had no realistic route to construction.
This creates artificial scarcity, distorts land and power valuations and deters investment in viable projects.
The TEC amnesty allows projects holding TEC that are unlikely to progress to voluntarily exit the connections queue without incurring the usual termination liabilities.
This process is intended to reduce the number of speculative or inactive projects occupying capacity, thereby helping to reduce the queue and allow viable projects to progress through the connections process.
Reform needed to focus not just on consent but on financing, planning and physical delivery capability.
Revision to the existing 'first ready, first connected' approach will hopefully give the industry the boost it needs and allow stakeholders to progress projects that are ready, rather than incentivising early speculative applications.
However, there is still a need to ensure that these reforms are implemented transparently and consistently by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) and distribution network operators, and readiness tests need to be consistent.
What are Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects?
Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) were introduced in the Planning Act 2008 as 'large scale major development projects' in energy, transport, waste, waste water or water.
The new Act also created NSIP provisions as part of critical national infrastructure (CNI) within the UK Government Resilience Framework. NSIPs provide a centralised planning route for delivering critical energy infrastructure such as transmission networks and substations that unlock developments like data centres and industrial hubs.
Through a policy-led Development Consent Order (DCO) process, NSIPs enable government to prioritise and accelerate strategically important projects, ensuring power infrastructure is delivered as a coordinated economic enabler alongside NESO's reformed, priority-based connections regime.
In addition, data centres and digital facilities are now protected as CNI sites, and with good reason.
Recent research by RLB found that operators expect to commission 42% more capacity in 2026 than 2025 – a staggering 318% increase since 2023. Change was therefore needed to ensure this momentum is not strangled.
Using the NSIP process could help streamline and simplify the current fragmented town and country planning system, freeing up the capacity for other mixed-use projects or wider regeneration and placemaking plans in urban or rural areas.
Further action is needed
However, there is still further action that the government could take.
Clearer national policy direction would help improve investor confidence and bring greater certainty for larger projects such as hyperscale and strategic industrial developments, which need extensive investment and involve huge risks.
NSIP reforms need to streamline project review timelines and not just shift the consenting route. Moreover, resourcing of NSIP governance capacity must match the increased demand, to ensure further bottlenecks do not occur.
While granting additional powers to development corporations will help accelerate larger-scale projects, planning consents are only part of the puzzle and are not always the primary bottleneck for large, energy-intensive projects.
The greatest challenge for most sits in strategic transmission reinforcement and grid capacity availability.
Grid buildout, reinforcement of power and long lead times for transformers, switchgear and high-voltage cable remain significant delivery risks.
And of course, shortages of skilled labour across power engineering and commissioning also constrain acceleration. Environmental permitting and outage coordination can also further extend programme timelines.
This isn't to say that additional powers for development corporations wouldn't improve coordination of land, planning and infrastructure phasing, with stronger land assembly and compulsory purchase powers in turn reducing early-stage delays.
But while development corporation powers may streamline the process, they cannot resolve physical grid and supply chain constraints on their own. Centralised master-planning is essential to better align utilities, transport and social infrastructure.
Before projects enter the planning ecosystem, developers and consultants need to understand their energy demands and accurately assess whether or not they are truly ready for consent planning.
Ensuring that the freed-up capacity is used for those really viable projects that have investment and deliverable design maturity means the country can move forward rather than stand still on meeting its ambitious targets.
'Resourcing of NSIP governance capacity must match the increased demand, to ensure further bottlenecks do not occur'
Rees Westley is head of utilities and energy at Rider Levett Bucknall
Contact Rees: Email
Related competencies include: Procurement and tendering, Programming and planning, Spatial planning policy and infrastructure
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