News

April 2008: South Hams District Council brings in charges for Informal Pre-Planning Enquiries and for the discharge of Planning Conditions on planning consents.

Charging for Discharging of Planning Conditions

I am writing to inform you that as of the 6th April 2008, South Hams District Council are now charging for the discharging of planning conditions.

The charges, which were introduced under The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) Amendment) (England) Regulations 2008 are :-

• £25 for conditions relating to a householder request, that is those developments which fall under categories 6 and 7a of the amended fees regulation.
• £85 for requests relating to all other types of development.

The fee must be paid when the request is made, and cannot be sought retrospectively. Only the holder of the planning permission may apply. Each request received will incur a charge. Therefore, if there are a number of conditions attached to the planning permission, it will be best to include the information required for all of the conditions, rather than submitting the required information on an ad hoc basis. To confirm clearance of more conditions, a further request, and a further fee, would be required if the developer needs confirmation in writing. An additional request for re-confirmation that a revised detail achieves compliance with a condition would be charged as if it were the first such request; there is no discount or ‘free go’ in this context.

The request, identifying the permission and conditions concerned, can be made in any written form which is clear and legible.

If the planning officer fails to provide a response within a period of twelve weeks from the date on which the authority received the request, the application will be entitled to a full refund.

Charging for Pre-Application Advice and Other Matters

Further to advice received from the Local Authority please note the following number of changes to the development control service at South Hams District Council, which will be introduced shortly. This information has been taken from recently issued Local Authority advice.

Charging for Advice

Firstly, on the 6 March 2008, the Council’s Executive resolved to introduce fees for pre- application advice. These will be introduced from 1 May, and will apply as follows :-

• Class A – All large scale major schemes, including residential developments of more than 200 houses, or non-residential floor space of 10,000 sq.m. or site areas of more than 4 ha. Here the charge will be negotiated once a realistic assessment is made of the extent of pre-application involvement needed.
• Class B – All other developments defined as “major”, i.e. residential schemes of between 10-199 houses, or sites of 0.5-4 ha, or non-residential floor space of 1,000-9,999 sq.m. or 1-2 ha. Fee will be £2,000 + VAT (assuming up to 4 round table meetings from a range of disciplines are required).
• Class C – All “minor” residential proposals (including holiday units), that involve the erection of, or change of use to, 1-9 dwellings. Fee will be £1,500 + VAT (assuming up to 3 meetings).
• Class D – All minor non-residential proposals for new buildings and changes of use. Fee will be £1,000 + VAT (assuming up to 2 meetings).
• Class E – All householder schemes for extensions, garages, satellite dishes, garden structures etc. No fee will be charged.

First and foremost, the service to be offered is for the provision of advice, it is not an approval service. It will aim to give applicants and developers very clear advice about whether the Council will recommend approval for a scheme, and how it may need to change to be supported by a recommendation. It would be known as the Development Advisory Service (DAS).

The process would commence with a preliminary meeting or other discussion when officers would explain the charges, process and timescale. The government funded Advisory Team for Large Applications (ATLAS) recommend that a Charter be produced, which would formalise the pre-application process, and “which might form part of an overall Planning Performance Agreement” (PPA) which would cover the whole of the decision making process as well. Such Agreeements are encouraged by Government for large developments, and, indeed, the speed of decision targets which are set by Government are due to be changed in April to permit longer timescales to resolve large-scale schemes where there is a PPA.

Proposed users of the DAS would be told that the advice would :-

• Be based on a “development team” approach, where a range of disciplines from all relevant Council Departments would be involved, so that a comprehensive and corporate response would be provided. Officers would endeavour to include representatives from other bodies, such as :- GOSW, the Highway Authority, Environment Agency, Natural England, English Heritage, etc. subject to their availability;
• Be provided in writing, and be reviewed by senior officers;
• Include references to all relevant planning policies and planning history;
• Be provided on a without prejudice basis because it cannot constrain the Development Control Committee which is entitled not to accept the officer recommendation if there are good and justifiable planning reasons not to do so;
• Set out clearly the issues which would be raised by the development, and either what sort of changes would be needed to make it supportable, or, in the event of insufficient changes being likely, what the grounds for refusal would be;
• Identify what level of community consultation would be expected in order to comply with the Council’s Statement on Community Involvement;
• Include an input from the Design and Conservation Panel where this was warranted;
• Set out the nature and quality of information which would need to accompany any subsequent application in order for it to be validated;
• Establish the sort of Heads of Terms that are needed to be included in any Section 106 Agreement;
• Be based on site visit information made by officers of the Council;
• Provide the guidance of the case officer who would deal with any subsequent application and any other useful contact details.

The Charter would establish a mutually agreeable timetable to conclude the pre-application process and provide the written response and this is likely to take between 2-6 months depending upon the complexity of the issues raised. The users of the service may seek to impose a refund of some of the charges if the Council is unable to meet the agreed timescales. The contract would also need to establish the obligations of the user on the quality of information that would be needed to enable an informed opinion on the scheme to be reached.

Development Control User Group
If you have any queries about the arrangements, then you might like to attend the Development Control User Group, which will meet at 2.00pm at Follaton House in the Council Chamber on 2 April. This Group was set up about 4 years ago to improve communication between DC and all users of the service. Currently, Parish Councils are well represented, but there are very few agents. The Council would like to find another half dozen who would be willing to spend an afternoon twice a year to discuss how to help each other.

Approved Plans
Currently, the Council return copies of approved plans with the planning permission. From 1 May the Council will no longer be doing this. Instead a set of approved plans will be given to the Building Control team. They will use these to cross reference the planning approved scheme with applications for Building Regulations approval for Building Notices. This will improve monitoring of sites and ensure departures from approved drawings are picked up much more easily. The planning permission will continue to list the approved drawings. If the Council need to provide copies a fee will be charged.

Planning Fees
It is expected that planning fees will be raised from April, but confirmation and the extent of the increases has not yet been received.

One-App
Also, from April the new nationally standardised one-app planning application form will be used by all planning authorities. This form can be downloaded from the Council’s website or is available from the planning offices as usual. From April no other type of application form may be used.