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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the answer of 4 December 2025 to question 94312, what a wholly exceptional reason would be.

Further guidance on how local planning authorities should implement the protections relating to irreplaceable habitats can be found in Planning Practice Guidance on gov.uk here and the footnotes to the National Planning Policy Framework on gov.uk here.