The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 changes the way planning applications for new advertising spaces are decided in England. Unless we act now, these decisions might in the future be made only by planning officers, meaning no democratic oversight by elected councillors and less opportunity for local people to raise objections.
The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 has made changes to planning committees within local councils which make the majority of small planning applications, such as those for outdoor advertising infrastructure, referable only to a planning officer and a councillor – where the officer has the right to overrule the councillor.
Councillors can influence this process (more on this below) and ask that any planning applications for illuminated and large outdoor advertising infrastructure be referred to the planning committee to avoid officers recommending approval within the new automatic referral process.
These plans come into place on 31st October 2026 so it is urgent that councillors and planning leads ask for this as the changes are made.
What is changing?
The Planning and Infrastructure Act became legislation in December 2025. In essence, it creates an overriding presumption for officers to decide specific types of applications instead of democratic planning committees (made up of local councillors with advice and recommendations from council officers). The idea is to reduce committee bottlenecks and get more planning applications through quickly by making Planning Committees operate more effectively. We’re concerned that this will mean more applications for outdoor advertising being approved without proper consideration of the impacts such advertising has on local environments and nature.
Currently, every local planning authority has its own “scheme of delegation” to identify the circumstances in which planning decisions are taken by planning committees rather than delegated to officers, and most local planning authorities already delegate a significant proportion of applications to officers. The government wanted to standardise this approach for more consistency via a national scheme of delegation for planning decisions in England.
Under the new rules, the public will also lose their right to speak for a few minutes in front of a planning committee who are deciding on the future of their local area. This will have a significant impact on local residents who want to make objections to outdoor advertising.
How will the national scheme of delegation work?
The national scheme of delegation sets out which planning functions should be delegated to Planning Officers for a decision and which should go instead to a Planning Committee or sub-committee.
Schedule 1 of the regulations sets out the applications which must be determined by officers in all circumstances. Schedule 2 sets out the applications that are presumed to go to officers unless they meet the criteria specified in the regulations and the nominated officer, usually the head of planning, and nominated member, usually the chair of the Planning Committee, agree that they should be referred to committee. This is called the ‘gateway test’.
Schedule 1: Mandatory Officer Delegation
Applications in Schedule 1 must be decided by Planning Officers. Elected councillors on the Planning Committee cannot vote or make decisions on these applications.
- Included developments are householder applications, minor commercial or residential developments (e.g. up to 9 homes), and technical or supplementary consents.
Schedule 2: Presumed Officer Delegation
Applications in Schedule 2 are delegated to officers unless they meet specific criteria that require a committee referral.
- Included developments are major outline schemes, variations of existing permissions, listed building consents, and tree preservation orders.
The Schedule 2 ‘gateway test’: To go to a committee, the application must meet specific criteria (such as raising significant policy, economic, or environmental issues) and require agreement from both the nominated officer (chief planner) and the nominated member (committee chair).
What can councillors do?
Local authorities need to update their Constitutions and Terms of Reference for Planning Committees to reflect these changes by 31st October 2026. This means that this process may already be underway in your local planning authority.
You can ensure that planning applications for outdoor advertising, particularly those that are illuminated and large scale, are added to Schedule 2 and so by default go to the Planning Committee for scrutiny if officers recommend approval, by:
- proposing formal motions at Full Council,
- serving on constitutional or governance review committees,
- or lobbying the Monitoring Officer and political group leadership.
Precedents
Some councils are proposing that for certain Schedule 2 applications, mostly major works, these are automatically referred to the local authority Planning Committee. This means that certain Schedule 2 items that ought to be heard by the two person panel are automatically referred to the committee instead.
You could also ask that they do this for illuminated and large scale outdoor advertising, mature tree fellings or any other applications that you think need wider oversight because of their impact on local communities.
Hackney Council have included ‘advertisement consent’ in the updated Terms of Reference for their Planning Committee. They have also recommended under major applications in Schedule 2 to include:
- “Applications for advertisement consent for advert/s measuring more than 10m2 recommended for consent.”
- “Applications for advertisement consent for illuminated freestanding adverts on the public highway recommended for consent.”
See the proposed new Terms of Reference for Hackney here.
Further reading:
- Adfree Cities briefing for councillors on Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 (5 pages) – July 2026
- National Scheme of Delegation: a threat to local democracy Town and Country Planning Association, June 2026
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