What does “emerging” actually mean?
A local plan is emerging from the moment an authority formally starts preparing it until the day it is adopted. In between sit consultation drafts, submission, examination hearings and main modifications. None of those stages give the plan development plan status. Under section 38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, applications are determined in accordance with the adopted development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. An emerging plan is one of those material considerations. It can influence a decision, and on a finely balanced site it can decide one, but it does not displace the adopted plan.
What are the three tests in paragraph 48?
Paragraph 48 of the NPPF (December 2024) says authorities may give weight to policies in emerging plans according to:
- the stage of preparation, with more advanced plans capable of carrying more weight;
- the extent of unresolved objections to the relevant policies, with fewer and less significant objections allowing more weight;
- the degree of consistency with the Framework, with closer alignment allowing more weight.
The wording is permissive throughout. Paragraph 48 says weight may be given, not must, and it sets no thresholds. A plan can be at examination and still attract limited weight if the policy in question is heavily contested.
Why does weight attach to the policy, not the plan?
The second test refers to objections to relevant policies, not to the plan generally. This is the part most often lost in summary. A submitted plan might have an uncontested settlement hierarchy carrying substantial weight while its housing requirement, sitting in the same document at the same stage, attracts objections from most of the development industry and carries very little. Where a decision records the weight given to an emerging plan without identifying which policy, the reasoning is incomplete, and appeal decisions regularly turn on that distinction.
What does the new plan-making system change?
The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026 came into force on 25 March 2026 and replaced the 2012 regulations. Plans in the new system run to a 30-month timetable with three Gateway assessments, the first of which is a self-assessment marking formal commencement. Plans already well advanced can still be submitted under the legacy system, with a December 2026 submission deadline for those covered by the December 2024 transitional arrangements. Paragraph 48 itself is unchanged, but the stages it is applied against now differ depending on which system a plan sits in.
Is paragraph 48 about to move?
A draft revised NPPF was consulted on between December 2025 and 10 March 2026. Publication has since been postponed and no new date has been confirmed. The draft restructures the Framework into chapter-based policy numbering rather than a single running sequence, so the paragraph 48 reference is likely to move even where the substance of the emerging-plan test survives. Anything citing paragraph 48 by number is worth checking against the version in force at the date of the decision.
What does this mean for a site search?
An emerging allocation is a useful signal, but only once the plan has reached a stage where the allocation is unlikely to move. Establishing the plan's position in the process, reading the representations submitted against the specific policy, and confirming whether the authority is working under the legacy or the 2026 system takes about an hour and changes how a site should be read. A site inside a draft allocation that attracted heavy objection at consultation is a different proposition to one inside an allocation nobody contested.
Common questions
Last updated 24 July 2026.