Infrastructure Planning Fees Rules Add Host Councils
This is one of those legal changes that looks small on the page but matters once you translate it into plain English. The Infrastructure Planning (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 were made on 13 May 2026, laid before Parliament on 15 May 2026 and will come into force on 8 June 2026. The statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk shows that ministers are not rewriting the whole planning system here. They are making a targeted change to the rules about fees. The regulations were signed by Matthew Pennycook, a Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, acting on the authority of the Secretary of State. That matters because this is a formal legal amendment, not just guidance or a policy note.
To understand the point of the change, we need a little context. The Planning Act 2008 created a route for giving development consent to certain nationally significant infrastructure projects. In other words, this is the part of planning law used for very large projects that are treated as nationally important. When a project goes through that system, a range of public bodies may need to take part. Fee rules matter because they help decide which public authorities can charge for relevant services connected to that work. So although this amendment is technical, it sits inside a much bigger question: who carries the workload when a major infrastructure project arrives in a local area, and who can recover some of the cost?
The legal wording itself is short. Regulation 3 adds definitions of 'the land' and 'local authority' to the 2010 Fees Regulations by linking those terms back to section 102 of the Planning Act 2008. That may sound minor, but in law, clear definitions do a lot of work. They tell everyone exactly which land and which authorities the rules are talking about. Regulation 4 then amends Schedule 2 to the 2010 Regulations, which is the list of 'prescribed public authorities'. Into that list the government inserts 'a local authority in whose area the land is situated'. That is the key line in the whole instrument.
In everyday language, the new rule brings host local authorities into the list of public bodies able to charge fees in relation to relevant services under these regulations. A host local authority is simply the council for the area where the project land sits. **What this means:** if a nationally significant infrastructure project affects land in a council's area, that council now has a clearer legal place within the fees framework. The explanatory note to the instrument is direct about this point: host local authorities are being inserted into the list of prescribed public authorities able to charge fees for relevant services.
The territorial reach of the regulations is also worth noticing, because planning law often turns on exact boundaries. The amendment extends to England and Wales and, in a limited way, to Scotland as well. But the Scottish part is narrow. It only applies where there is an oil or gas cross-country pipeline, not built by a gas transporter, with one end in England or Wales and the other in Scotland. That detail tells you something useful about statutory instruments. Even short regulations have to spell out where they apply and where they do not. If a project crosses borders, the law has to be precise.
It is just as important to see what has not changed. These regulations do not create a new planning route, do not alter the basic development consent system and do not announce a broad new charging regime for every authority. They amend the Infrastructure Planning (Fees) Regulations 2010, which have already been updated several times before, and they do so in a focused way. The explanatory note also says no full impact assessment was produced because no significant impact is expected for the private, voluntary or public sector. That suggests ministers see this as an administrative adjustment rather than a major policy shift, even if it may still make a practical difference for councils involved in live cases.
If you are reading this as a student, teacher or curious local resident, the lesson is a good one: a statutory instrument can change how public bodies work together without looking dramatic at first glance. Here, the government has used a few lines of legal text to clarify definitions and to name host local authorities more clearly in the fees system. So the takeaway is simple. From 8 June 2026, host local authorities are expressly included in the list of prescribed public authorities for these infrastructure planning fee rules. For councils, that means firmer footing in the process. For everyone else, it is a reminder that some of the most important changes in public life arrive in careful, technical language that needs translating before its real effect becomes clear.