New CPO online publicity rules start 2 Dec 2025
New rules for how compulsory purchase orders are advertised now apply. From 2 December 2025, the Government has commenced parts of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 so that CPO notices and key documents must be put online, with a transitional safeguard for cases already underway. This comes via Statutory Instrument 2025/1262 published on legislation.gov.uk (the official source).
Let’s ground this in plain language. A compulsory purchase order (CPO) is a legal tool that lets a public body buy land for a project in the public interest-think new transport links, flood defences, or housing-when agreement with the owner cannot be reached. A separate body, known as the confirming authority, decides whether the case is strong enough. You’ll see those terms used throughout the official documents.
So what does “online publicity” actually mean for you as a reader and potential objector? When an authority makes a CPO, it must still run a notice in a local newspaper, but it must also publish that notice on an appropriate website for at least 21 days, ending on the final date for objections. The Acquisition of Land Act 1981 now spells this out in section 11.
Notices now have to point you to a webpage where you can view the order and its map, and they must clearly state the final day for making objections. A new section 12A explains how that ‘final day’ is calculated so that the newspaper notice, the on‑site notice and the online notice run in step. The official Explanatory Notes describe these changes as a modernisation so more people can find and understand CPO information.
After a CPO is confirmed, publicity continues online. The authority must publish the confirmation notice on an appropriate website for six weeks, and where a CPO is confirmed with conditions, it must also publish a separate ‘fulfilment notice’ online and in a local newspaper once those conditions are met. Section 15 of the 1981 Act sets out the detail.
Who is covered by this latest commencement? It applies to CPOs that are made or confirmed by authorities other than the Welsh Ministers-so in practice, most CPOs led by councils and UK ministers in England. There is also matching provision for purchases made by ministers, via Schedule 19, so minister‑run schemes follow the same online steps. Wales has its own confirmation arrangements where Welsh Ministers act.
What if a CPO was already moving before these rules started? The instrument includes a transitional rule: if the first statutory notice of the order (or of a ministerial draft order) was published before the commencement date, the old publicity rules continue to apply to that case. This avoids changing the process mid‑stream.
There is also a reform called ‘conditional confirmation’. The 2023 Act allows a confirming authority to confirm a CPO subject to stated conditions-such as securing funding or a linked planning permission-with a defined procedure to follow before the order ‘switches on’. The Act requires regulations to set that procedure; objectors must be notified and can send written views.
What this means for you as a student, educator or resident is simple: you should now expect to find live CPO notices and the full order documents on a website you could reasonably locate by searching for the project name. The law keeps a physical route too-orders and maps should be available locally-unless the confirming authority has directed that this is impracticable in special circumstances.
Equity check: moving notices online should make schemes easier to track, but people without reliable internet still need fair access. The Explanatory Notes emphasise that the online step sits alongside local newspapers and physical inspection points, aiming to widen reach while keeping offline options. As teachers, this is a good case study in how access to information supports fair process.