It is a question that, on first glance, might seem rather technical and niche. In practice, it is one of the most consequential questions facing developers and promoters right now: how long will it take for a Local Plan to be adopted, and therefore, is there sufficient time to get a speculative planning application and appeal through the system before the potential protection of an up-to-date plan lands?
The Context: A Planning System on an Appeal Footing
The vast majority (around three-quarters) of local planning authorities currently find themselves without an up-to-date plan. In the absence of one, the tilted balance in favour of sustainable development applies and speculative applications and appeals become the primary mechanism through which housing sites are tested.
In theory, the adoption of a Local Plan should end this dynamic. A plan should be adopted with a deliverable five-year housing land supply. Two important caveats apply. First, adoption does not always guarantee a clean break from appeals: Uttlesford's Local Plan was recently adopted without one, a recognition that housing delivery trajectories remain uncertain even after an Inspector's report. Second, even where a plan is found sound and adopted, authorities that fail the Housing Delivery Test remain vulnerable to the tilted balance (Richmond upon Thames being a recent example, having had its plan found sound in August 2025 while continuing to face HDT pressure).
Notwithstanding those nuances, the adoption of a Local Plan remains the single most significant event that changes the strategic planning environment in any given area. So the question of how long the process takes matters enormously.
The Wave That Is Coming
I have written previously about this tidal wave of Local Plan submissions bearing down on the system, trying to avoid the cliff edge of the end of the year to be assessed under the current system. Earlier estimates suggested the number might be c.135; the latest PINS projection is around 117, a modest reduction largely explained by authorities such as North Northamptonshire announcing they will instead proceed under the new plan-making system introduced by the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (and those that have submitted since the last estimate).
The scale of this challenge has prompted the Planning Inspectorate to announce it is doubling its local plans inspector workforce and accelerating inspector recruitment and training. While this recruitment is welcomed, it should be noted that in the previous years, a low of 11 and a high of 31 authorities submitted local plans in any one year. This predicted four fold increase in submissions is unlikely to be offset by a doubling of Inspectors and my own expectation is that timescales involved with processing Local Plans will increase.
Looking Back at What the Data Actually Shows
Using the Planning Inspectorate's monitoring data on strategic plan submissions, 51 plans were submitted in the past two years. These were:
• Winchester City Council — 13 months
• Chichester District Council — 13 months
• Pendle Borough Council — 9 months
• Uttlesford District Council – 13 months
• West Suffolk District Council – 7 months
This is obviously the very speediest of plans and the many others remain without an Inspector’s Report. In fact, the average time for an Examination was 37 months.
What were the reasons that meant these Local Plans managed to get through so quickly? The common denominators are:
• None of the authorities sought to release any Green Belt (or had no Green Belt within them).
• A very pragmatic approach to housing land supply and housing requirements (Winchester, Uttlesford, etc)
• A low housing requirement and limited new allocations in the case of Pendle.
• All assessed against the 2024 NPPF, rather than the new NPPF and its related significant increases to the standard method.
• More limited Duty to Co-Operate issues (in the view of the Inspector)
The other factor overlooked when assessing the time it takes to get a Local Plan found sound is the lag between submission and hearing dates.
Looking at the plans submitted in the past twelve months, those that have a hearing date have taken between 4.5 – 6.5 months.
Looking Forward
Those headline figures need to be treated with considerable caution, because two material changes in the policy environment mean that the examination timescales we have seen before are unlikely to repeat.
First, the end of open-ended "pragmatism". Until July 2024, there was a longstanding expectation - rooted in a 2015 Ministerial letter - that Inspectors should operate pragmatically to help fix deficient plans during examination, even where this took years. This produced the perverse outcome that the average length of an examination dramatically increased, with no guarantee that plans would ultimately be found sound. In his letter of 30 July 2024, the Minister of State Matthew Pennycook MP wrote to the Planning Inspectorate's Chief Executive to reverse this approach. This makes clear that any pause during examination to undertake additional work should usually take no more than six months overall. Plans that cannot be made sound within that window should be sent back, not nursed along indefinitely.
This is not a trivial change. Applied retrospectively to plans found sound in recent years, it would have resulted in the withdrawal of a significant number of examinations rather than their eventual conclusion. For promoters, this cuts both ways: faster examinations for plans that are well-prepared, but also a greater likelihood of plans failing or being withdrawn where fundamental issues remain unresolved - which in turn prolongs the appeal footing in those areas.
Second, the availability of inspectors and the unprecedented volume of work. As discussed, the enormous increase in Local Plan submissions seems likely to lead to a slowdown in processing times. The time from submission to the start of hearings is an example of this.
We should also add to this context that the duty to co-operate will be downgraded from a statutory requirement to a matter of soundness, but to balance this out, some authorities are moving very quickly to submission and as a result, there may be deficiencies in the submitted evidence in some cases.
Conclusion
So, how long can you expect a Local Plan Examination to last. Well, as ever, the answer is it depends; however, to be a bit more specific, I would put the examinations into three categories:
1. Less than 2 years from submission – uncontroversial, non-Green Belt authorities with lower levels of growth required.
2. Around two years from submission – medium level complexity, some potential for a pause to resolve specific issues. Moderate levels of opposition.
3. More than two years from submission – highly complex (and likely) Green Belt authorities, issues on submission to be resolved through the process (if sufficient time) and very high levels of opposition (including counsel on both sides).
In addition, there will be numerous authorities that have to withdraw their Local Plans as they cannot resolve issues within the six-month time limit set by the Government.
The process is complex and every plan is different, but the data at least means promoters and developers can stop guessing and start planning.
