Increase in planning fees on the way?
Hannah Moule, Director at The Rural Planning Co gives a quick overview on the two main headlines to this consultation.
As part of the LURB the Government has published a consultation on whether to increase fees for planning applications, with the objective of using the increased funding to build capacity and resource in the LPAs. Whilst the increase in LPA resource is much overdue and welcomed, the increased planning fees are yet another hike in the overall costs of planning.
As a quick overview, there are two main headlines to this consultation:
1) The proposal to increase planning application fees by 35% for major applications and 25% for everything else which includes prior approval applications, minor and householder applications.
2) Retrospective application costs would double
3) LPAs can continue to set their own fees for pre-app advice and other bespoke services
4) Possible removal of the ‘free-go’ for repeat applications
If the proposed changes go ahead it is likely to be introduced in summer 2023 with a review no later than three years.
The consultation does however acknowledge that just increasing the funding is not going to fix the planning system and would be expecting LPAs to improve performance.
Those are the right words… but years of cumulative and compounded problems in the planning systems aren’t going to be easily solved by extra cash, but that’s a different blog for a different day!
