The mayoral planning powers consultation has opened with the government asking how new powers should work. This is reassuring because the powers themselves presumably have not been left in a drawer labelled “deal with after lunch”.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published the consultation on 24 August 2026. It seeks views on implementing planning provisions in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026.
The proposals cover mayoral involvement in planning applications of potential strategic importance. They also cover Mayoral Development Orders and a Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy for mayors outside London. The consultation includes changes to secondary legislation for Local Development Orders.
Mayoral planning powers consultation, with optional instructions
This is the administrative equivalent of handing someone a cake and asking how best to slice it. The legislation has supplied the ingredients. The consultation now wants everyone to discuss the knife, the angle and whether the plate needs a separate approval.
Councils, mayors and interested members of the public can consider how the machinery should operate. It may then begin making decisions with the confidence of a photocopier that has just discovered delegation.
Fictional consultation coordinator Prudence Formsby placed a feedback form inside another feedback form. “Naturally, all responses will be read carefully, alphabetised and stored somewhere that future generations may access after completing a separate consultation,” she said.
A map with regional ambitions
The mayoral planning powers consultation applies to England. It mainly concerns mayors outside London, although it also proposes further changes to the London approach. The government says it will close at 11:59pm on 5 October 2026.
That gives the public several weeks to decide whether strategic planning should be strategic, planned or merely wearing a lanyard.
The contradiction is simple. Devolution is being assembled through a process so centralised that local ambition must queue behind national paperwork. A mayor may eventually gain a stronger hand over development. First, that hand must complete the approved form and remember which version of the form is currently approved.
For now, the blank folded map remains optimistic. It has marked every proposed power with a neat little arrow. Then it submitted a formal objection to the word “eventually”. The objection has been acknowledged, assigned a reference number and invited to respond to its own acknowledgement.
Source: GOV.UK.
