Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to annex 14 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill: Impact assessment, published in May 2025, what she expects the average length of a strategic plan to be.

As the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Impact Assessment sets outs, the government expects that spatial development strategies will be concise and focused to reflect their role as high level strategic documents. As such, we expect future spatial development strategies to be significantly shorter than the current London Plan.

While we do not intend to indicate precisely how long spatial development strategies should be, my department will provide strategic planning authorities with further guidance to support them in meeting this expectation.