England: Draft regulations providing for a 20 per cent increase in planning application fees were laid before Parliament on the 19th October 2017. The regulations have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament which is anticipated to be before the end of the year. Once approved the new fees will come into force 28 days later – leaving a small window to get new applications registered at the current rates.

Government promised the increase to local planning authorities earlier on this year if they agreed that the additional money would only be re-invested within their planning department. This is the first planning fee increase for 5 years.

The increase means that the standard rate of £385.00 (application fee for each new dwelling) will go up to £462.00, a householder planning application will increase from £172.00  to £206.00, prior approval applications will increase from £80.00 to £96.00 and so on.

As well, the new regulations will now allow a planning application fee to be charged by a Local Planning Authorities where permitted development right have been withdrawn – either by Article 4 direction or by a condition imposed on a planning permission. Such applications at the moment are free of charge.

It is important for our clients to be aware of these forthcoming changes in order to necessarily pay the higher charges. Obviously the larger the fees the greater the increase will be.; In particular we would advise any developers sitting on sizeable outline consents to consider getting their reserved matters applications submitted before the new fees come into play.We wouldn’t advise clients to wait until the fee increase is confirmed because 28 days is a very tight time-frame to put together an application, submit it and have it registered.

Why not call Pure Town Planning today for our advice on your forthcoming applications?