What Will the Burnham Government Mean for Planning, Housing and Flood Risk?

Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026, and the Burnham government's planning agenda is already taking shape. The cabinet is appointed, the first speech has been given, and the big in-flight reforms (the new NPPF, the national scheme of delegation, council reorganisation) are all still moving. For anyone with a site, a scheme or an application, the short answer is this: expect continuity on the machinery, a hard pivot towards council housebuilding, and no let-up in the flood risk and drainage requirements that decide whether permission is granted.

This guide sets out who now holds the planning-relevant posts, the system they inherit, what Burnham and his ministers have actually said and done, and what it all means for developers, landowners and anyone preparing a planning application in England.

Andy Burnham is the UK's seventh Prime Minister in ten years, and he inherits a planning system midway through its biggest rewrite since 2012, with the final NPPF, new committee rules and council reorganisation all landing within 21 months.

How did Andy Burnham become Prime Minister?

Through a by-election, a resignation and an uncontested leadership race, all inside five weeks. Keir Starmer announced his resignation in June 2026 after heavy losses in the May local elections and months of Labour trailing Reform UK in the polls. Burnham, still serving as Mayor of Greater Manchester, won the Makerfield by-election on 19 June 2026, returning to the House of Commons after a nine-year absence.

On 17 July 2026 he was declared Labour leader unopposed, having secured nominations from 379 of Labour's 403 MPs. Three days later, on 20 July, he accepted the King's invitation to form a government. His acceptance speech leaned on the themes that defined his mayoralty: "We will take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to the place you live."

Two things in his first day signalled where housing sits in the programme. His Downing Street speech promised, flatly, "And we will build more council homes." And he told the assembled press that his first instruction on walking through the door would be "to end rough sleeping in our country." He also confirmed a 10-year national plan for later this year, the document most likely to carry the government's long-term housing and infrastructure programme.

Who is in the Burnham government, and why does it matter for planning?

The planning story of the new cabinet is continuity. Angela Rayner returns as Housing Secretary, the post she held until September 2025, and Matthew Pennycook stays as Minister of State for Housing and Planning, the minister who wrote the December 2025 draft NPPF and the new committee rules. The changes sit around them: John Healey at the Treasury and Dame Angela Eagle at Defra.

The departures matter too. Rachel Reeves left the Treasury, Steve Reed left Housing after ten months in the post, and David Lammy and Peter Kyle also went: nine cabinet ministers out in a single afternoon. Reed's exit line, "Serving as the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has been the honour of my life", closed a tenure that delivered the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and the December 2025 draft NPPF.

For planning purposes, the Rayner–Pennycook pairing is the single most important fact of the reshuffle. The two people most responsible for the current reform programme are now back at the same desks, which makes wholesale reversal of that programme very unlikely.

What planning system does the Burnham government inherit?

A system in mid-reform. Five major workstreams begun under Keir Starmer are all live at once, and each reaches a decision point within the new government's first two years. Applications today are still decided under the December 2024 NPPF, but the rules around it are changing on a fixed timetable.

• The December 2024 NPPF. Restored mandatory housing targets totalling around 370,000 homes a year, defined "grey belt" land for the first time and moved flood risk vulnerability classification into the framework itself as Annex 3. See our guide to the revised NPPF and flood risk and our Annex 3 vulnerability classification explainer.
• The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. Royal Assent on 18 December 2025: a Nature Restoration Fund, stronger development corporation powers and the legal basis for reforming planning committees.
• The December 2025 draft NPPF. A full rewrite, out to consultation until 10 March 2026, with the final framework expected in summer 2026. See our breakdown of the December 2025 draft and the sequential test.
• The national scheme of delegation. Regulations already laid take effect on 31 October 2026, sending most planning applications to officers rather than committees.
• Local government reorganisation. Confirmed on 16 July 2026, four days before Burnham took office: 134 county and district councils are set to become 38 unitary authorities. See our guide to what reorganisation means for flood risk and planning.

None of these dates was set by the new government, and that is the point: the Burnham administration's early planning record will mostly be written by decisions it inherits, not decisions it initiates. The choices it does control, such as whether to soften the draft NPPF, where to spend housing money and whether to commence Schedule 3, are covered below.

What has Andy Burnham actually said about housing and planning?

Burnham's stated housing priority is unambiguous: council homes. He has committed to the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war period, a Housing First approach to homelessness modelled on Finland, and the release of public land for social housing. His first speech in Downing Street repeated the pledge.

The analysis behind the pledge is what he calls the housing trap. In his 29 June speech he argued: "We are forced to chase rent in the private rented sector through the benefits system. When governments try to control these costs by freezing the local housing allowance, it makes families homeless."

Burnham's own framing of the problem: spending on housing benefit now runs at over seven times what the country spends on building homes.

His record backs the rhetoric. As Mayor of Greater Manchester he ordered a rewrite of the region's spatial plan in 2017 in response to green belt objections, and the adopted Places for Everyone plan set an ambition of 50,000 affordable homes by 2039, 30,000 of them for social or affordable rent. His approach was consistently brownfield-first: town-centre regeneration, public land and transport-led development ahead of green belt release. One planning-sector analysis put the caveat well before he took office: Burnham "likes to be liked, and that is not always possible when it comes to matters related to planning and development."

His parliamentary voting record points the same way. TheyWorkForYou records him as having "consistently voted against phasing out secure tenancies for life", "tended to vote for more powers for local councils" and "generally voted for measures to prevent climate change". It is the profile of a housing interventionist, not a deregulator.

Two further commitments matter for the planning system: a "Number 10 North" in Manchester, and what he described on 29 June as "the biggest transfer of power out of Whitehall in modern times", with housing powers moving to elected mayors and Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands named.

Will the 1.5 million homes target survive under Burnham?

The target stays; the delivery route changes. Labour's manifesto commitment to 1.5 million homes this Parliament remains in place, Rayner returns as the minister who set the supporting 370,000 homes a year framework, and nothing said by Burnham or his ministers signals retreat. What shifts is emphasis: from private developer delivery towards councils, public land and development corporations.

Angela Rayner returns to the housing brief as the minister who promised in December 2024 that she would "not hesitate to do what it takes to build 1.5 million new homes over five years."

The arithmetic remains difficult. Every English region missed its 2025 housing-need target, and the Office for Budget Responsibility projects delivery of around 240,000 homes a year by 2029–30, roughly two-thirds of what the standard method demands. That gap is why the new government's instruments look different: reports suggest Burnham wants the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme steered towards local authorities, and he has said his Chancellor will unlock unused public land for social and council homes. Healey's appointment reads as deliberate: a Chancellor who was Housing Minister in 2009–10 and spent four years as Shadow Housing Secretary.

For applicants, the practical point is that housing need figures in local plans are not going anywhere. Councils still have to find the numbers, which keeps pressure on land supply, five-year land supply arguments and the grey belt, and keeps marginal sites, including sites with flood risk and drainage constraints, in play.

The grey belt mechanics are worth restating, because they survive any plausible version of the final NPPF. Since December 2024, councils reviewing green belt boundaries must work through a sequence: previously developed land first, then lower-quality grey belt, then other sustainable green belt locations, with brownfield remaining, in the government's phrase, "the first port of call". A council-housing-led government changes who builds on that land more than whether it gets built on.

What happens to the new NPPF under the new government?

Publication is still expected in summer 2026, and the smart money is on the framework landing substantially as drafted. Pennycook wrote the December 2025 draft and kept his job; Rayner built the 2024 framework it extends; and delaying it would stall the government's own housing programme. The open question is whether its most contested proposals survive untouched.

• A dedicated flood risk chapter. Flood risk separates from the general climate section, with a plainer statement that development which cannot be shown to be safe for its lifetime should be refused.
• A clarified sequential test. The test survives, with tighter wording on when it applies and how search areas are defined.
• A "default yes" around stations. In-principle support for development around rail stations, including on green belt land, at minimum densities of 40 and 50 dwellings per hectare.
• A permanent presumption. The presumption in favour of sustainable development becomes a "permanent presumption in favour of suitably located development".
• National SuDS standards, named. Drainage design is tied explicitly to the 2025 national standards for sustainable drainage.

Two of those proposals will decide how the framework is received. The "default yes" around stations is the one most exposed to political change: green belt permissiveness imposed from the centre is precisely what Burnham resisted in Greater Manchester, though density around transport hubs is equally the model he championed there. Retention with more local control looks likelier than abandonment. And the proposed surface water carve-out from the sequential test drew formal opposition from seventeen insurance and flood bodies in a joint letter to ministers in March 2026, the subject of our analysis of the insurers' warning.

Seventeen names in UK flood risk, including the ABI, Aviva, AXA, Zurich and Flood Re, warned ministers that weakening the surface water sequential test could leave new homes uninsurable.

Until the final framework is published, the December 2024 NPPF continues to govern every application and appeal.

What happens to the new towns programme?

The final site decisions land on the new government's desk almost immediately. The New Towns Taskforce, set up in July 2024, recommended twelve locations; in March 2026 the government trimmed the shortlist to seven, consulted until 18 May 2026, and promised final decisions in late summer 2026, which now means decisions taken by Rayner and signed off by Burnham.

Every signal suggests the programme accelerates rather than stalls. Development corporations are the government's stated preferred delivery vehicle, and they are Burnham's favourite instrument too: he used one in Stockport and has pledged more. The parameters already set, 40% affordable housing with at least half of it for social rent, align neatly with his council housing agenda. And one of the seven shortlisted sites, Victoria North, sits in the middle of the city region he ran for nine years.

The delivery questions are financial rather than political: no dedicated new towns grant programme has been announced, with delivery expected to draw on the £16 billion National Housing Bank that opened in April 2026 and existing affordable housing funds. For landowners and promoters near the shortlisted sites, the practical point is that development corporation designation brings compulsory purchase powers and a plan-making regime of its own, worth understanding early, before boundaries are fixed.

How will planning committee decisions change from 31 October 2026?

From 31 October 2026, officers rather than councillors will decide most planning applications in England. The national scheme of delegation, made under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, was announced in March 2026 on a simple rationale. As the government put it, "96% of planning decisions in England are already not made by planning committees", and the new rules fix that position in law.

1. Check Schedule 1. Householder applications, minor commercial schemes and minor residential schemes of one to nine homes on sites under 0.5 hectares must be decided by officers in every case.
2. Everything else defaults to officers. Schedule 2 applications, including major schemes, are presumed to be officer decisions too.
3. Apply the gateway test. A case only reaches committee if a nominated officer and the committee chair agree it raises an issue of significance to the local area; if they disagree, the guidance is blunt: "the case must be determined by officers."
4. Decide and record. A committee decision taken outside these rules risks judicial review; the statutory guidance warns it "may lead to the quashing of the decision."

Buried in the statutory guidance is a flood risk provision that has had far less attention than it warrants. Paragraph 24 lists the circumstances unlikely to raise a significant planning matter, and among them:

In plain terms: resolve the Environment Agency or lead local flood authority objection, and your scheme will normally stay with officers rather than going to committee. The technical work that answers a consultee objection, the flood risk assessment and the drainage strategy, becomes the decisive gate, and member-level unpredictability largely falls away for schemes that get that work right.

Could the new government pull the scheme back? In theory; in practice the machinery is almost finished. The regulations were laid under the affirmative procedure in spring 2026, two consultations drew 579 and 611 responses with broad support for the tiered approach, statutory guidance was published in June, and a formal review is already built in for October 2028. Softening at the edges, such as councillor training requirements or tweaks after the review, is far more likely than reversal.

What do devolution and council reorganisation mean for planning applications?

Devolution is the most consistent theme of Burnham's entire career, and the structural reforms are already law. On 16 July 2026 the government confirmed reorganisation for the remaining two-tier areas of England: 134 county and district councils are due to become 38 unitary authorities, with Surrey first in April 2027 and most other areas following on 1 April 2028. From vesting day, each new unitary becomes both the local planning authority and the lead local flood authority for its area, as covered in our full guide to local government reorganisation.

Nothing changes for live applications in the meantime: current councils keep deciding, and the NPPF tests are untouched by the restructuring.

Over time, though, validation lists, drainage standards and discharge requirements will be harmonised across each new authority, so requirements near former district boundaries can shift. Where a county splits into several unitaries, four each in Kent, Devon, Lancashire and Hertfordshire, flood risk teams and their records must be divided too, which is where consultee delays are most likely in the transition years.

Expect Burnham to build on this rather than slow it. A serving metro mayor until days before entering Downing Street, he has pledged mayoral housing powers, national "good growth funds" modelled on Greater Manchester's £2 billion investment pot, and strategic planning led from the regions.

What does the Burnham government mean for flood risk, drainage and SuDS?

No policy retreat is coming on flood risk. The technical framework, flood zones, the sequential and exception tests, Annex 3 vulnerability classification and surface water assessment, sits in the NPPF and national guidance rather than in any minister's gift, and the draft NPPF strengthens rather than weakens it. The open questions are narrower, and they now belong to a new Environment Secretary.

• Schedule 3 remains the big open decision. Mandatory SuDS approval under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 has been in force in Wales since 2018 but never commenced in England; the inherited position, per the Commons Library briefing, is that better SuDS delivery "may be achieved by continuing to improve the current planning policy-based approach".
• The 2025 national SuDS standards are embedded. The draft NPPF names them directly, so drainage designed to the national standards from day one is the safe assumption whatever happens to Schedule 3.
• A new hand on flood policy. Dame Angela Eagle takes Defra with a strong environmental voting record; TheyWorkForYou logs her as having "consistently voted for improving environmental water quality".
• Nutrients first. The first Environmental Delivery Plans under the new Nature Restoration Fund are committed to nutrient pollution only. See our guide to nutrient neutrality in planning.
• The evidence bar keeps rising. NaFRA2 data, new surface water depth bands and updated standing advice all arrived in 2025–26 and are unaffected by the change of government.

6.3 million homes in England are already at flood risk, 4.6 million of them from surface water alone, which is why insurers fought the draft NPPF's surface water carve-out so hard.

Eagle arrives at Defra with more departmental familiarity than most new secretaries of state: she served as a Minister of State in the same department from September 2025 to June 2026, so the Schedule 3 file, the flood investment programme and the Environment Agency's sponsorship arrangements will not be new to her. An MP for coastal Wallasey since 1992, she has one of the longest environmental voting records in the Commons.

The signals to watch: Eagle's first statement on Schedule 3 or the SuDS standards, the fate of the surface water carve-out in the final NPPF, and whether flood resilience features in the 10-year national plan Burnham has promised for later this year. In the meantime the day-to-day evidence requirements are unchanged and rising: the Flood Map for Planning gained surface water climate change extents and depth data in May 2026, and standing advice now expects applicants to appraise the suitability of the flood datasets behind their assessments rather than simply quoting a flood zone.

What should developers and applicants do now?

Act on the rules in force, not the rules being drafted. Every current application is decided under the December 2024 NPPF, and the biggest procedural change of the year, officer-default decisions from 31 October 2026, rewards exactly one thing: technical submissions strong enough to resolve consultee objections.

1. Submit against the current framework. The December 2024 NPPF and current standing advice govern today's decisions; do not wait for the final NPPF.
2. Front-load the flood and drainage work. From April 2026, appeal rules limit new evidence later in the process; the first submission has to be right.
3. Design drainage to the 2025 national standards. The draft NPPF expects it, LLFAs increasingly require it, and it future-proofs against a Schedule 3 commencement.
4. Treat consultee objections as the main event. Under the delegation scheme, resolving an EA or LLFA objection is what keeps a scheme out of committee.
5. Check who your council will be. If your site sits in a reorganising county, confirm the authority timeline before assuming who will determine your next application.

The common thread is that technical quality now buys certainty. A flood risk assessment or drainage strategy that satisfies the statutory consultees first time is no longer just a validation requirement; under the new decision rules it is the difference between an officer approval and a committee gamble. Unda prepares flood risk assessments and surface water drainage strategies for exactly this environment; if a site or scheme needs one, get in touch.

Frequently asked questions