Director Roudaina Alkhani reflects in this post on the opportunities offered by the new planning reforms, particularly the SDS.
Earlier this year, she contributed views on UK planning reform through the Draft NPPF consultation roundtable – London, held by the RTPI in January 2026.
With the return of strategic planning through new Spatial Development Strategies (SDS) and the recently published National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), there is a significant opportunity – if managed well – to strengthen the sustainable development of communities and sub-regions.
The RTPI described the new NPPF in its 17 August 2026 news as a “positive step forward”, with “the power to create more sustainable and better-connected places across England”. But it also highlighted that clear guidance is needed on “how local plans will work with forthcoming strategic plans.”
I think this relationship will be critical.
The NPPF establishes the SDS as part of the development plan, providing a strategic spatial framework to guide Local Plans. An SDS, prepared by Strategic Planning Authorities across the UK, should “set a positive vision for future growth and change at a sub-regional scale” and provide a clear high-level spatial framework for investment and growth, including new housing.
It should identify broad locations for growth and regeneration, strategic infrastructure and investment, address nature conservation and restoration, and set out implementation and monitoring mechanisms. Its minimum 25-year horizon also provides the potential for greater stability for long-term investment.
This is potentially a powerful tool.
But the question is not only what an SDS should contain, but whether we can turn it into a vehicle for qualitative delivery to promote thriving regions.
This is particularly relevant in the new political environment, with mayors and strategic authorities being given greater powers and responsibilities, while the pressure to deliver more housing, infrastructure and economic growth is intensifying, and with the first £10bn of funding from the Social and Affordable Homes Programme in place.
Strategic planning therefore cannot simply be another layer of policy-making. It needs to help align housing, infrastructure, investment, transport, economic growth, and environmental objectives across boundaries.
Delivery should not be measured only in numbers. We need to think carefully about what kind of places we are creating to support communities over the next 25 years. These places should connect people to jobs and services, respond to housing needs, promote social equity and wellbeing, support economic opportunity, strengthen nature and climate resilience, and make responsible use of our finite natural resources.
This is not simply a technical exercise.
It requires the skills, capacity and leadership to develop a shared vision for sub-regions and regions, and to connect this effectively with Local Plans’ work and their spatial strategies.
The local contribution to the SDS will be equally important. We need to link regional and local perspectives from the beginning, rather than treating them as separate levels of planning.
The real opportunity, in my view, is therefore not simply to enable growth, but to shape better and more sustainable places through growth and more resilient and adaptable regions. That is where I believe the new strategic planning framework can make a real difference.
© Roudaina Alkhani
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Photo: Aerial view of Portsmouth – licensed under the Creative Commons