The Government has today published the updated suite of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (“NSIP”) planning guidance, including the keenly awaited guidance on pre-application consultation and the ‘acceptance test’: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-infrastructure-planning-guidance-portal (make sure you scroll down to the section headed: “National Infrastructure Planning Guidance from 24 July 2026”).
It’s really good.
Contrary to the expectations of sceptics, it frees up developers to use the pre-application phase pretty much as they see fit.
Developers now only have themselves to blame if they continue to do things as they did before (producing SoCCs, PEIRs and consultation reports and multiple rounds of consultation), resulting in long pre-application periods driven by consultation alone.