The draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation, published in December 2025, proposes to prevent local authorities from setting local standards in planning policy, particularly energy efficiency standards, under a provision identified as PM13: Setting Standards1. The Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) has published a notice on the consultation inviting responses, and states that the deadline for replies is 10 March1.
According to the AECB, if the proposal is adopted as it stands, local authorities would no longer be able to set targets covering energy, carbon and overheating1. The categories it lists are energy use intensity, space heating demand and renewable energy for energy; embodied and whole life carbon for carbon; and overheating1. The AECB states that national building regulations, which it describes as the minimum standard or "floor", would then become the only standard, both the "floor" and the "ceiling", and that all homes would be built to the lowest common denominator1.
The AECB sets out its position on the effect of the proposal:
"We think that this approach will negatively affect our collective efforts towards Net Zero and prevent Local Authorities from seeking lower energy bills for their residents."
The consultation question the AECB directs respondents to is Q181. It states that LETI has worked with a number of local authorities and organisations to develop a template response, which it says can be used, adapted and added to1. The AECB notice was posted on 19 February 20261. The consultation itself was published by the government in December 20251. No further detail on the consultation's contents, on which authorities or bodies have responded, or on the government's intended timetable beyond the 10 March date has been reported in the material available1.
Why it matters for households
Planning policy set by a local authority is one route by which energy performance requirements above the national minimum can be applied to new homes in a given area. The AECB's reading of the draft is that this route would close, leaving national building regulations as the single standard for all new homes1. For a household, the practical consequence described is that the energy performance of a new home would be determined by that national minimum rather than by any local requirement, and the AECB links this to the level of energy bills residents face1. The proposal concerns standards for new build, not the rules applied to existing homes, and the material does not set out how it would affect retrofit, rented sector minimum standards or any devolved regime. How rules of this kind are proposed, decided and changed is set out in the site's guide to energy consultations, and the split of powers between Westminster and Edinburgh is covered in energy and buildings policy in Scotland. The wider question of how much control sits locally rather than centrally is discussed under local control.
What happens next
The AECB states that responses to the consultation should be submitted as soon as possible and definitely by 10 March1. It points respondents to Q18 and to a template response developed by LETI with local authorities and organisations1. No outcome date, government response or decision timetable is given in the material available1.