A warm welcome to all delegates followed by a thematic overview of the day.

• What interventions have been made so far?
• What further policy changes can we expect to drive the government’s positive planning agenda?
• What is the government doing to specifically support LPAs and drive culture change?

Q+A

• How can this positive culture be created in LPAs? What works? 
• What are the difficulties and can it be done with limited resources? 
• What are the implications of reform of planning committees/greater officer delegation?  

• Update on latest transition timetables, status of front runners, digitisation timetable
• Outline impact of NDMPs
• Setting out new approach on design and design codes

Focus on the implications of the proposed new tier of strategic planning across England

• What will strategic plans cover and when will they come in? 
• How will they affect local plans? 
• What will their role in green belt be and how will they be drawn up?

Moderated by Professor Samer Bagaeen

A1: How are digital planning and AI going to change planners’ jobs forever?

• The opportunities from digital local plans
• The opportunities from combining digital documentation with granular prop-tech data
• What the pitfalls are and how to avoid them

B1: How can you solve the Section 106 delivery challenge for affordable homes?

• Why aren’t housing associations taking on s106 stock? 
• What are the practical ways this issue can be mitigated through options such as cascade mechanisms, payments in lieu, councils taking on stock etc. 
• Are there other ways out that don’t involve a reduction in the affordable housing offer?

Q&A

C1: How can the sector better plan for employment uses?

• How do LPAs deliver local growth plans?
• What method should LPAs use to decide how much land to provide?
• How can the developer sector work in partnership with authorities to make the case for employment uses?

A2: How can local planning authorities deliver great services without the funding to match?

• How to foster effective partnership working between LPAs and developers that pays for services
• Delivering truly effective working between officers and members
• What works in terms of running a planning team

Q&A

B2: Grey belt - Will housing development be brought forward under the golden rules?

• Where are the opportunities for developers? 
• How broadly is grey belt defined? 
• Are opportunities stymied by the requirements under the golden rules?

C2: How can the planning system deliver 150 major infrastructure decisions by the end of the parliament?

• Is the government delivering on the necessary NSIP reforms?
• Does PINS have the capacity to process the casework?
• What do the infrastructure provisions in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill mean for the sector?

A3: Beyond beauty: How can authorities use design codes to create amazing places?

• What the removal of beauty from the NPPF means for planning
• The new role for design codes with the end of authority-wide coding 
• What the design code policy means for neighbourhood planning
• How to embed placemaking and good design into local plans

B3: How will the next generation of new towns be planned for?

• What is coming up from the New Towns Taskforce
• How authorities in areas selected for New Towns should approach their local plans
• What are the right delivery arrangements for New Towns?
• What are landowners and the private sector’s role in delivery?

Q&A

C3: How to prepare for growth in council CPOs to support housing delivery?

• What are the implications of newly revised law on CPOs, and proposals for further powers
• Will local authorities take up a new mandate from the government to use these powers?

• Where are applicants focusing their energy? 
• Are applicants seeing the next period as a key time of speculative applications? 
• How significant a factor will grey belt be? Where is it located?

• How does the new system allow LPAs to maintain the quality of development, and resist proposals on unsustainable locations?
• How can LPAs be positive about growth while maintaining strategic control? 
• How should LPAs respond to grey belt applications? 
  

• What PINS is doing to address the volume of appeals, local plan and NSIP work coming through the system without growing the appeals backlog 
• How inspectors are approaching appeals on grey belt land
• How the new system of sending back local plans at risk of failing the soundness test is working and what it means for LPAs