What changed in the 2026 edition of Building for a Healthy Life
Jonathan Braddick · · 10 min read
Homes England published the 2026 edition of Building for a Healthy Life on 17th May 2026, the first new edition since 2020. This is a note on what it keeps, what it changes, and what that means for a scheme being assessed against it now.
The edition arrived in stages, which is worth knowing before anyone quotes it. The PDF went up on GOV.UK on 17th May 2026; an amended PDF followed on 20th May; an HTML version on 10th June; and on 7th August 2026 a further version corrected an error in Consideration 7. The HTML edition is the one to work from, and it applies to England. Both are linked again at the foot of this note.
What has not changed ...
The shape of the framework is as it was. There are still three headings, Integrated neighbourhoods, Distinctive places and Streets for all, with twelve considerations beneath them running from the scale of the neighbourhood down to the front door. Anyone who learnt the 2020 edition will find their way around the 2026 one without a map.
The traffic lights are as they were too. Green means the proposal performs well against a consideration; amber means performance is mixed and there is more to do; red means the problem is fundamental and the proposal should be paused and reworked. The edition says plainly, as its predecessor did, that it is not a checklist and is not designed as a scoring system. The considerations are prompts for a conversation rather than boxes to tick, and the aim is simply more green lights. It is worth saying this early, since the point is easily lost once a scheme has twelve colours next to it.
Two practical points carry over. The framework is described as typically suited to developments of around ten homes or more, with the considerations still useful as prompts on smaller schemes. And an amber is sometimes nobody's fault: the edition gives the examples of third-party land that limits connections, where an amber may be justified if future connections are still allowed for, and of highway authorities that have not adopted Manual for Streets principles, where it says in terms that the developer should not be penalised.
The twelve considerations in 2026 ...
| Consideration | |
|---|---|
| Integrated neighbourhoods | 1 Natural connections · 2 Getting around · 3 Facilities, services and stewardship · 4 Homes for everyone |
| Distinctive places | 5 Making the most of what's there · 6 A memorable character · 7 Well-defined streets and spaces · 8 Easy to find your way around |
| Streets for all | 9 Healthy streets · 10 Cycle and car parking · 11 Green and blue infrastructure · 12 Back of pavement, front of home |
Two titles have changed, and both changes mean something. Consideration 2, "Walking, cycling and public transport" in 2020, is now Getting around. Consideration 3, "Facilities and services", is now Facilities, services and stewardship; the added word is the point. How community assets are to be managed and maintained over the long term is now written into the consideration itself rather than left to a management plan to be written later. Anyone who typed the 2020 titles into a design and access statement last year will want to find and replace.
Each consideration keeps the structure it had: an introduction, a lettered list of "what's needed", a list of what a green light looks like, a list of what a red light looks like, and illustrated examples. Across the twelve, the 2026 green and red lists run to 195 points. I mention the number for completeness rather than because it matters; the change in emphasis is the story, and I will come to it.
What the authors say has changed ...
The edition carries its own "What's changed and what's new" section, which is the right place to start and which I would rather you read than my summary of it. The summary, in my words, is this.
The health focus stays, and nature and active travel move up. The 2020 edition was steered by NHS England to reflect its Long Term Plan. The 2026 edition keeps that focus and does more to promote nature-based solutions and active travel, for wellbeing and for climate: richer green infrastructure, more ambitious tree planting and better management of surface water, while making efficient use of land.
Active travel now has a statutory backdrop it did not have in 2020. Active Travel England is a statutory consultee on applications of 150 homes or more, Local Transport Note 1/20 has been published, and Active Travel England has joined the Building for a Healthy Life partnership. The edition carries more active-travel examples as a result, and reflects Sport England's Active Design (2025).
Biodiversity net gain is now law, and the framework responds. Since February 2024 biodiversity net gain has been a legal requirement on planning applications. The edition asks for blue and green infrastructure to be integrated directly into movement corridors and to form connected networks that reach beyond the site boundary, and it aligns itself with Natural England's Green Infrastructure Framework principles.
Consideration 11 has been revised. Trees and sustainable drainage along movement networks need clearer design and long-term stewardship, together with "play on the way", seating and social space. Consideration 11 now carries that detail, and it asks whether the detailed design and the management arrangements will actually deliver places that work for people and for nature, which is a harder question than whether the drawing looks green.
More urban, higher-density examples, and twice as many good ones. This reflects Homes England's growing urban regeneration work and the weight national policy now gives to building more homes, using land efficiently and the part denser schemes play in supporting walkable neighbourhoods, facilities and services.
Taken together, the five point the same way. The 2020 edition asked, in effect, that a scheme do no harm to health. The 2026 edition expects walking, cycling, nature and water to be the starting point of the public realm rather than something added to it, and it expects that at densities which many 2020-era layouts never contemplated.
A map to national policy, read the right way round ...
The 2026 edition includes tables mapping each consideration to policies in the National Planning Policy Framework and to the draft Design and Placemaking Planning Practice Guidance. The direction of travel in those tables matters: it is the framework pointing at policy, not policy pointing at the framework. The National Planning Policy Framework does not name Building for a Healthy Life. The draft Design and Placemaking guidance, published for consultation in 2026 and not yet in force, does name it, as a design assessment tool that "can support pre-application discussions". Policy numbering also moves, so check any reference against the current NPPF before it goes into a submission.
Who publishes it, and who may do what ...
The framework is written by David Birkbeck and Stefan Kruczkowski and published by Design for Homes. The 2026 edition sits on GOV.UK under Homes England, which embeds the framework in every scheme it leads and treats it as a key performance indicator in its Strategic Plan. The edition names Homes England, the Home Builders Federation, the Design Network and the Urban Design Group as the bodies standing behind it, and the Future Homes Hub, Active Travel England and the Royal Horticultural Society as new partners.
It is also explicit about commercial use, in a section that anyone preparing a self-assessment should read before they start rather than after. In summary:
- The framework is the intellectual property of its authors and is registered with the Intellectual Property Office.
- Commercial training and post-completion auditing may be carried out only by members of the Design Network, Homes England or the authors. Local planning authorities may use the framework free of charge, including for their own in-house training and auditing.
- A self-assessment submitted with a planning application must not use any Building for a Healthy Life imagery: not the logo, not the front cover, not the contents. The edition treats use of that material without written permission as a breach of copyright.
- A self-assessment that has been checked by a member of the Design Network carries that member's quality mark, and that is how the edition suggests local planning authorities recognise one.
- A scheme with at least nine green lights and no red lights can apply for the framework's own recognition, which allows the logo to be used on the development; where formal certification is required, the Design Network passes the assessment to Design for Homes, who issue it.
The edition also says something about weight which deserves repeating, because it is said by the authors and not by me. Self-assessment, it says, is a practical way to keep the framework in mind through a project and through pre-application discussions; and then, at decision-making, a self-assessment carries less weight than an independent assessment. That is the authors' position, and it is the honest one.
What this means for a self-assessment made with our tool ...
Our tool is built on the 2026 edition as updated on 7th August 2026, and each consideration in it links to the official wording on GOV.UK. Three things follow from the edition's own text, and I would rather set them out here than have them discovered later.
The first is that your certificate is a record of your own assessment, in our words. The questions are our paraphrase of the framework's green and red lists; the rule that turns your answers into a rating is ours, and we publish it. The certificate uses no Building for a Healthy Life imagery, and it is neither the framework's own recognition nor a Design Network member's quality mark. Those routes belong to the authors and to the Design Network, and the edition tells you how to use them.
The second is that a 2020-era self-assessment is out of date. The renamed considerations, the revised Consideration 11 and the shift in emphasis mean that a scheme assessed against the 2020 lists should be run again against the 2026 lists before it goes anywhere near a submission.
The third is that an outside view remains an outside view. If you want one, an Independent Design Review Panel Assessment is a desk review of your self-assessment by The Design Review Panel, a connected company under common ownership with us, whose reviewers are unpaid volunteers and whose findings do not depend on your result or on the fee. It is not an official Building for a Healthy Life product, and the weight given to it, as to your own self-assessment, is a matter for the decision-maker.
In short ...
The 2026 edition keeps the twelve considerations and the traffic lights, renames two considerations, rewrites the eleventh, and expects more of a scheme on nature, active travel, stewardship and density than the 2020 edition did. The framework points at national policy; national policy does not name it. The authors are clear about who may do what with their work, and clear that a self-assessment is the start of a conversation rather than the end of one. If you are starting a scheme now, read the edition's own "What's changed" section first, and then Considerations 2, 3 and 11, where the ground has moved most.
Sources and further reading