The New 2026 NPPF Green Belt Policy

The New NPPF Green Belt Policy: From Paragraphs to Policies GB1–GB8

On 17 August 2026 the Government published a wholly restructured National Planning Policy Framework, replacing the version issued in December 2024.

This is a full re-platforming of national planning policy into codified, Local Plan-style policies, split explicitly into plan-making policies and national decision-making policies.

Green Belt policy has moved with it.

What was previously paragraphs 142 to 160 of Chapter 13 is now eight numbered policies — GB1 to GB8 — five for plan-making and three for decision-making.

The underlying purposes of the Green Belt are untouched:

• preventing urban sprawl,

• safeguarding the countryside,

• preserving the setting of historic towns, and so on.

But several of the operative tests that determine whether a scheme actually gets permission have changed in ways that matter in practice, not just in presentation.

This article works through the new structure policy by policy, sets it against the equivalent December 2024 text, and flags where the substance — not just the numbering — has moved.

The new NPPF Green Belt policies are:

• GB1: Establishing new Green Belts

• GB2: Assessing existing Green Belt land

• GB3: Altering existing Green Belt boundaries

• GB4: Defining Green Belt boundaries

• GB5: Beneficial uses of Green Belt land

• GB6: Control of development in the Green Belt

• GB7: Development which is not inappropriate in the Green Belt

• GB8: The Golden Rules

GB1: Establishing new Green Belts

The test for creating a brand new Green Belt is largely carried over — exceptional circumstances only, typically where planning for new settlements or major urban extensions.

The old requirement to "show what the consequences of the proposal would be for sustainable development" and to "show how the Green Belt would meet the other objectives of the Framework" has gone.

In its place, GB1(1)(c) requires the proposal to demonstrate compatibility with long-term growth ambitions, including those beyond the plan period, for the area.

This is a subtle but real shift in emphasis: the 2024 test asked whether a new Green Belt designation was consistent with sustainable development generally; the 2026 test asks whether it is compatible with the area's growth trajectory.

For landowners and developers concerned about future Green Belt creep constraining longer-term allocations, this is worth flagging early in any strategic representations.

GB2: Assessing existing Green Belt land

This is a new plan-making policy. It does two things:

1. It requires spatial development strategies to carry out a strategic-level Green Belt assessment against the five purposes, to identify where boundaries may need further consideration at local plan level.

2. It requires local plans to carry out an assessment "in accordance with the process at Annex E" to identify grey belt land and inform boundary alterations under GB3.

The significance here is that the grey belt identification methodology — previously sitting in Planning Practice Guidance — is now promoted into Annex E of the 2026 NPPF and becomes part of national planning policy.

That materially strengthens the status of grey belt assessments in examinations and appeals: a local planning authority (or promoter) applying the Annex E methodology is applying national policy directly, not merely "having regard to" guidance.

GB3: Altering existing Green Belt boundaries

The "exceptional circumstances" test survives, but the associated three-part reasonableness test is condensed and, quietly narrowed.

The 2024 requirement to demonstrate that the authority had been "informed by discussions with neighbouring authorities... as demonstrated through the statement of common ground" (old para 147(c)) has been dropped from the list.

The following policy requirements remain:

• making best use of previously developed and underutilised land;

• optimising density (now cross-referring to new policy L1); and

• assessing whether sufficient sites exist outside the Green Belt.

Two additions matter more:

• GB3(3) introduces a bespoke, lighter-touch route for traveller sites — an exceptional, limited boundary alteration to accommodate a single inset traveller site allocatio.

• GB3(4) is the standout change in this policy. Where a spatial development strategy has identified suitable land around well-connected stations, boundary alterations to release that land do not require exceptional circumstances to be demonstrated at all. This is a genuinely new liberalisation with no 2024 equivalent, and it dovetails with the new station-proximity route created in GB7(h) below.

GB4: Defining Green Belt boundaries

Largely a consolidation of the old paragraph 149 criteria (permanence, physical features, safeguarded land), but two points are worth noting for practice:

• GB4(1)(e) now expressly requires that local plans releasing Green Belt land for major housing development build in Golden Rules compliance at the plan-making stage, rather than leaving this to be tested purely at decision-making stage. Expect local plan examinations to test this more directly than before.

• GB4(1)(g) puts beyond doubt that safeguarded land "does not form part of settlements" until formally released through a plan update — closing off an ambiguity that had occasionally been exploited in argument that safeguarded land should benefit from the general presumption applying inside settlement boundaries.

GB5: Beneficial uses of Green Belt land

This elevates the old, fairly general paragraph 151 into a proper plan-making duty, with explicit hooks into Local Nature Recovery Strategies and into the National Forest, Community Forests and Protected Landscapes objectives where they overlap with Green Belt land.

For landowners and developing promoting sport, recreation or habitat-led schemes within the Green Belt, this gives a firmer policy anchor than previously existed.

GB6: Control of development in the Green Belt

This is essentially old paragraph 153, restated as a clean, closed-logic decision-making policy

Development is inappropriate unless it falls within GB7.

It states that inappropriate development is by definition harmful and should be refused absent very special circumstances; substantial weight is given to Green Belt harm, including harm to openness.

Renewable energy is added as GB6(3), carrying forward the old paragraph 160 wording largely unchanged.

GB7: Development which is not inappropriate

This is where the real substance sits for plannign decision-making.

This new policy consolidates the old paragraphs 154 and 155 into a single exhaustive list.

Several changes are more than cosmetic:

(a) Agriculture and forestry. The old test was confined to "buildings for agriculture and forestry." GB7(1)(a) now covers development for agriculture, horticulture and forestry more broadly.

This wording change appears to bring non-building operations (hardstanding, drainage works, engineering operations tied to farming) within the automatically-not-inappropriate category, where previously only buildings qualified.

Criteria (b) to (e) repeats the 'not inappropraite' development in old paragraphs 154 and 155 i.e.:

• The reuse, extension, alteration or replacement of an existing building, provided that the existing building is of permanent and substantial construction, is lawful in planning terms, and any extension or alteration will not result in a disproportionate increase in size compared to the original building. In the case of proposals for a replacement building, it should be for the same use and not materially larger than the one it replaces;

• Limited infilling in villages lying within the Green Belt;

• Limited affordable housing for local community needs;

• The redevelopment of previously developed land, including a material change of use to residential or mixed-use including residential), which would not cause substantial

  harm to the openness of the Green Belt;

(f) The "other forms of development" list — a softened test. The old paragraph 154(h) required that qualifying development (mineral extraction, engineering operations, infrastructure, and so on) must "preserve the openness of the Green Belt and do not conflict with the purposes" — an absolute, binary formulation.

GB7(1)(f) now asks only that impact on openness "is minimised" and that there is no significant conflict with Green Belt purposes. This is a materially lower bar. Where a scheme in this category previously had to show zero net effect on openness, it must now show that effect has been kept to a minimum — a test with far more room for planning judgment, and correspondingly more scope for promoters to argue merit.

(g) The grey belt route. This restates the old paragraph 155 tests. - rey belt land, demonstrable unmet need, sustainable location.

But the sustainable-location cross-reference has moved from old paragraphs 110/115 to new policy TR3. The Golden Rules compliance, previously a free-standing paragraph 155(d), is now directly in this sub-policy as GB7(1)(g)(iv). Functionally the same test, more tightly drafted.

(h) Station-proximity development — genuinely new. There is no 2024 equivalent to this at all.

Residential or mixed-use development is not inappropriate in the Green Belt where it is within reasonable walking distance of a well-connected station, physically well-related to the station or settlement, of a scale the available infrastructure can accommodate, and does not prejudice long-term comprehensive development of the same area.

Major development in this category must still meet the Golden Rules (GB8), but critically it does not need to demonstrate grey belt status or an evidenced unmet need — the two gateway tests that govern every other form of Green Belt housing release under GB7(g).

Read together with GB3(4), this creates a distinct and considerably more permissive route to Green Belt release wherever a spatial development strategy has earmarked land near a well-connected station.

This is likely to be the single most consequential change in the chapter for promoters with station-adjacent land interests.

GB8: The Golden Rules

The three policy elements survive unchanged in substance: affordable housing, necessary infrastructure, and accessible green space.

But the drafting has tightened in three respects that will affect how the policy is used in practice:

1. Affordable housing rate. The default 15% uplift (capped at 50%, or 50% by default where no existing requirement applies) is retained, but is now expressly framed as a fallback to be used only until the relevant development plan has adopted its own rate under new policy HO5(1)(a)(ii). Expect local plans coming forward under the new system to set their own Green Belt affordable housing rates more routinely, displacing the national default.

2. Viability now closed to a defined list. Previously, a viability assessment challenging Golden Rules compliance could be submitted under the general viability policy on essentially open grounds. GB8(3) now permits this in only three defined circumstances: previously developed land burdened by abnormal costs not accounted for in the plan's viability evidence; strategic sites; or development of a wholly different type to that assessed at plan-making stage.

   Outside those three gateways, a scheme cannot use viability to reduce its Golden Rules contribution — a significant tightening compared with the 2024 position, and one worth explaining clearly to clients weighing scheme viability at an early stage.

3. Explicit exclusion for traveller sites. Footnote 43 now expressly excludes traveller sites from the Golden Rules altogether, removing an ambiguity that existed under the 2024 wording.

What this means in practice

For anyone considering development on a Green Belt site, three points stand out:

• The presumption route has changed. Under new policy S5(5), Green Belt and Local Green Space proposals are expressly carved out of the general "outside settlements" presumption test and must be run through GB6, GB7 and GB8 specifically — so the old habit of testing a Green Belt scheme against the general presumption in favour of sustainable development no longer applies; GB6/GB7 is now the whole test.

• Grey belt has been promoted from guidance to policy, via GB2 and Annex E — a stronger evidential footing for grey belt arguments than existed under the December 2024 PPG-based approach.

• Station-proximity land is now a distinct opportunity class. GB3(4) and GB7(1)(h) together create a materially easier route to Green Belt release near well-connected stations than exists anywhere else in the chapter, sidestepping both the grey belt test and the unmet-need test that apply to every other form of housing-led Green Belt release.

Any Green Belt strategy, site promotion or emerging local plan representation prepared against the December 2024 Framework should be reviewed against GB1–GB8 before further submissions are made.

The tests are recognisably descended from the 2024 version, but the new station-proximity route in particular changes the balance of argument available on a number of sites that would previously have failed.

Are you planning a development in the Green Belt?

If you are preparing a planning application, or have received a planning refusal in the Green Belt and need planning advice, contact me to discuss your project.

Andrew Ransome MRTPI - Email: andrew@andrewransome.co.uk

About me

Andrew Ransome is a Planning Director and a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), with more than two decades of experience in town planning.

He specialises in delivering strategic planning solutions for complex developments across both rural and urban environments, helping clients navigate planning challenges and unlock development opportunities. Connect with Andrew on Linkedin.

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