Spotlight: NISTA refocuses the GMPP, Government opens the £21bn National Housing Delivery Fund and makes changes to the appeal process for local planning authorities while record wind generation helps buffer the UK from global energy shocks

ENERGY

✒️£64 million for Port Talbot offshore wind hub in the Celtic Sea | Press release from Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, The Rt Hon Jo Stevens MP and The Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

📰 Top energy developer warns on overbuilding power supplies for AI | Financial Times (paywall)

📰 Record wind output helps shield the UK from worst of Iran war fallout | Reuters

📰 NESO outlines operability and markets strategy | reNews

📰 The huge task of rewiring Britain's electricity grid from top to bottom | BBC News

📰 More drilling in North Sea ‘not the answer’ for UK energy security, say former military leaders | The Guardian

📰 BPF commissions commercial rooftop solar research | PBC Today

🗣️This is what a fossil-fuel shock looks like. The UK must adapt its energy system – and quickly | Chaitanya Kumar, Head of Environment and Green Transition at the New Economics Foundation

INFRASTRUCTURE

✒️ Road Investment Strategy 3 (RIS3): 2026 to 2031 introduction |  Policy paper from Department for Transport

✒️ Government refocuses major projects to boost delivery of national priorities | Press release from National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority

✒️ Stalled housing and employment sites to be unlocked with new £165 million road fund | Press release form Department for Transport, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP and The Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP

✒️ Office of Rail and Road announces Interim Chief Executive | Press release from Office of Rail and Road

📰 Two data centres to be built at life science campus outside London, UK - DCD | Data Centre Dynamics

DEVELOPMENT

✒️ National Housing Delivery Fund (NHDF) | Report from Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

✒️ National Housing Bank and Aviva to invest £100 million to build thousands of high-quality family homes in UK towns and cities | Press release from National Housing Bank and Homes England

✒️ Town and Country Planning (Consultation) (England) Directions 2026 | Correspondence giving the Housing Secretary power to call in schemes of 150+ homes from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

✒️ Simpler, faster planning appeals are coming | Press release from Planning Inspectorate

📰Eight key points from the government’s latest measures to shake up planning committees | Planning Resource (paywall)

🗣️ Local Plan: Response to Minister for Housing and Planning | Letter from Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst OBE, the Leader of Three Rivers District Council, to Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook MP

📰 Fragmented planning risks slowing New Towns delivery, report finds | PBC Today

📰 Ministers vow to “rip up consultation culture” | Local government Lawyer

📰 Berkeley cuts back on housebuilding in blow to government plans | The Times (paywall)

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