UK Construction and Law
Four standard section 106 templates are proposed as the default for housing sites of 10 to 49 homes
By Staff Writer | 28 August 2026
A consultation opened on 25 August on a bilateral agreement, a unilateral undertaking and two affordable housing schedules for medium sites in England. The schedule for full permissions carries a discretionary cascade that can end in a payment in lieu. Responses close at 11:59pm on 20 October.
The four drafts were published with the consultation and are meant to be read with it. Two are the deed itself, in bilateral and unilateral form, with schedules for financial contributions and for the authority's covenants. The other two are affordable housing schedules, one for full permissions and one for outline. The department says the templates are intended to become the default for relevant applications, and the word default is doing real work here.
Why the default has teeth
The new National Planning Policy Framework, published on 17 August, says at DM6(4) that where national model planning obligations are relevant to the development they should be used unless there are strong reasons for using a different obligation. That is the policy hook. It also introduced the category the templates are built around: medium development means housing of 10 to 49 homes inclusive on a site of up to 2.5 hectares. An earlier working paper of May 2025 had proposed the same unit range on sites of up to 1.0 hectare, so the area threshold has more than doubled and the number of schemes caught has grown with it.
Nothing in this displaces the statutory tests. An obligation still has to be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to it, under Regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010, and agreements still have to be considered site by site. What changes is where the argument happens: on the standard provisions, or only on the parts genuinely particular to the scheme.
I would encourage local planning authorities to consider the draft templates carefully and share their practical experience of negotiating and administering planning obligations.
Joanna Averley, Chief Planner
The cascade, and where it stops
The affordable housing schedule for full permissions is the document worth reading first. It carries a discretionary cascade for the case where, despite reasonable efforts, no affordable housing provider will take some or all of the homes. The structure is sequential and each stage has a period attached to it.
The owner must use reasonable endeavours for at least six months to agree an unconditional contract to transfer all the affordable units to a provider on reasonable commercial terms. If that fails, the owner may notify the authority with reasons and evidence. Where the authority is not satisfied that reasonable endeavours were used, it may require a further period of up to three months. Where it is satisfied the obstacle is the affordable housing mix, an alternative mix is approved and a further three month period of marketing follows. Only if that also fails may the owner elect to pay the affordable housing contribution, after which the units can be disposed of as market housing free of the restrictions in the schedule.
Two features of the drafting matter to anyone negotiating one of these. The mechanism names the local authority itself as a potential purchaser, and it tests that appetite early rather than after every other route has been exhausted, which is intended to take delay out of the sequence. And the cascade sits outside the DM6(4) default: the department says the policy is not intended to apply to it, that its use is at the authority's discretion, and that updated guidance will make clear it may be appropriate where there is evidence of reduced registered provider demand rather than as a general expectation.
Who is bound by the deed
The templates anticipate freeholders, leaseholders, developers and mortgagees signing, and are to be amended to reflect the interests actually held. As drafted, only freeholders and leaseholders give the covenants and are directly liable. Other parties are included to confirm consent to their interests being bound and to ensure they are bound if they take possession. That allocation is negotiated afresh on every scheme at present, and it is where a settled national form saves the most time.
The drafts came out of a competitive tender run by the Planning Advisory Service in November 2025, with the contract awarded in February 2026. The department says feedback will shape the final versions, and that further model obligations and planning conditions will follow.
For anyone acting on medium sites, the practical point is the timetable. These are drafts, open for comment until 20 October, and once settled the policy position is that they should be used unless there are strong reasons not to. The time to argue with the drafting is now, not on the next scheme.