Government bypasses local planning oversight for London military headquarters

The government’s military headquarters facility at Northwood in northwest London is about to have a large upgrade, but you aren’t allowed to know what they’re doing.

Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) at Northwood – OGL (Open Government License).

The Northwood Headquarters, which, despite its name, is not in Northwood (obviously a way of distracting the enemy), has been a military site since it was taken over in 1938, when the military built a series of underground command bunkers.

The Navy took over the site in 1971, and in 1996, the UK military’s Permanent Joint Headquarters was built underneath it. A £150 million upgrade took place between 2006-11, and now they want to upgrade the site again.

Normally, if an organisation wants to carry out a large redevelopment, it needs to file a planning application with the local council – in this case, Three Rivers District. This application has to be a public document (well, usually a lot of documents), which means we would all be able to see inside the secretive military base.

For example, here.

Ohh!

However, during pre-planning meetings with the local council, MoD officials couldn’t share some of the details of what they wanted to build inside the base with the local councillors as they didn’t have security clearance.

Faced with the possibility that the councillors would have to reject or refuse to decide on the sight-unseen application, the government has triggered a Special Development Order provision in the Town and Country Planning Act to bypass the planning process entirely.

Development order outline overlay on Open Street Map

Last October, the Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, asked the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, to approve the request, and The Town and Country Planning (Northwood Headquarters) Special Development Order 2025 was submitted to Parliament last month – coming into effect this Wednesday (5th Feb 2025).

So, on the one hand, the military secrets inside the base are protected from prying eyes, which is good for the UK’s national security.

On the other hand, if you’re the sort of person who loves rummaging around planning documents to see what people are up to… Damn!