Statutory Instruments

SI 2018 No. 1314¹

1. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/1314/made

These Regulations make various changes to the planning application fees charged by local planning authorities.

Firstly, they provide for an increase in fees of 20%.

Secondly they include a fee to be charged for an application for permission in principle, of £402 per 0.1 of a hectare of the site area. Permission in principle is a new planning consent route designed to separate decision making on ‘in principle’ issues addressing land use, location, and amount of development from matters of technical detail, such as what the buildings will look like1 .

Thirdly, they enable any Mayoral development corporation, or urban development corporation, to charge for giving preapplication advice to an applicant about applying for any planning permission, approval or consent under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (c.8) (“the 1990 Act”).

Fourthly, they provide that a planning application fee will be charged where a local planning authority has withdrawn “permitted development rights” through serving a direction or by a condition imposed on a grant of planning permission. The effect of “permitted development” is that no planning application needs to be made to the local planning authority to obtain planning permission, although in some cases the permitted development right will require the local authority to approve certain matters before the development can proceed (a process generally referred to as “prior approval”.)

Finally the Regulations also introduce a fee of £96 to be charged by a local planning authority for an application for their prior approval of certain matters before particular classes of permitted development2 can proceed.

Explanatory note¹

1. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/1314/pdfs/uksiem_20171314_en.pdf