The system in brief

There is just one planning system in England, but it operates on many levels

While your interest in, for example, a field may seem a very local concern, what will happen to that field depends on several levels of planning policy.

As shown below, local development is influenced by what happens locally and nationally.

For example, whether a patch of land is filled with houses depends on which sites of land were allocated for housing in the development plan.

This in turn depends on what national policy says about which land should be prioritised for housing development.

The structure of influence is laid out below, starting with

• European directives and laws
• National planning legislation
• Primary acts of Parliament
• Secondary (regulations)
• National planning policy
• Planning Policy Statements and Minerals Policy Statements, Government circulars, Government white papers, ministerial statements
• National Policy Statements. These outline Government policy on major infrastructure.

Planning Policy Statements were introduced by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. As well as these, a number of their predecessors, known as Planning Policy Guidance notes, are still extant. 

These in turn influence

• Local Transport Plans
• Local Development Frameworks. These were introduced by the 2004 Act, and are made up of statutory Development Plan documents, and non-statutory Supplementary Planning Documents.
• Saved policies from the pre-2004 system of Local Plans and Unitary Development Plans.

Other 'material considerations' can be such things as changed circumstances, new information and overriding need.