IMPORTANT: New Legislation – relating to the Fees Regulations 2012 (17/01/2018) …

The following 1 new Statutory Instrument (SI) comes into force on 17/01/2018:

New Legislation:

  • January 2018: SI 2017 No. 1314 - The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 (pdf) (link).

Notes:

  • The above SI 2017 No. 1314 includes amendments to the following SIs:
    - Fees Regulations 2012.
  • The "Explanatory Memorandum" (link) to the above SI includes the following information:
    - "These Regulations [SI 2017 No. 1314] 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 like. Thirdly, they enable any Mayoral development corporation, or urban development corporation, to charge for giving pre-application 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 Fourthly, they provide that a planning application fee will be charged where a local planning authority has withdrawn “permitted development rights” through serving a direction or by a condition imposed on a grant of planning permission.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 [SI 2017 No. 1314] 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 development can proceed."
  • Note: The above "particular classes" of the GPDO (i.e. for which a fee of £96 is introduced for an application for prior approval) are as follows:
    - Part 4 Class CA (i.e. the provision of a temporary "state-funded school" on "vacant commercial land").
    - Part 4 Class E (i.e. the temporary use of land or buildings for the purposes of "commercial film-making").
    - Part 6 Class A (i.e. "agricultural development on units of 5 hectares or more").
    - Part 6 Class B (i.e. "agricultural development on units of less than 5 hectares").
    - Part 6 Class E (i.e. "forestry developments").
    - Part 7 Class C (i.e. the erection of a "collection facility" within the curtilage of a shop).
    - Part 11 Class B (i.e. the "demolition of a building").
    - Part 14 Class J (i.e. the installation of solar panels on a non-domestic building).
  • Note: The above SI amends regulations 8 and 9 of the Fees Regulations 2012 so that an application for permission in principle will benefit from a free-go in similar situations to an application for planning permission (e.g. following the granting of permission, the refusal of permission, the withdrawal of an application, etc).
  • Note: The above SI amends regulation 9A of the Fees Regulations 2012 so that an application for permission in principle will benefit from a refund of the fee in similar situations to an application for planning permission (e.g. where the LPA fails to determine the application within 26 weeks, etc).
  • With regards to transitional provisions, the "Explanatory Note" (link) at the end of the above SI includes the following information:
    - "Regulation 7 [of SI 2017 No. 1314] is a transitional provision. It provides that the changes made by these Regulations, including the increased fees and the introduction of a fee for a prior approval in relation to the new permitted development rights, will only apply where an application, request or site visit is made or deemed to have been made on or after the coming into force date of these Regulations.".
  • Note: The above SI 2017 No. 1314 comes into force "on the twenty eighth day after the day on which [these regulations] are made". In other words, the above SI 2017 No. 1314 comes into force on 17/01/2018.
  • Note: The above SI makes more than 130 separate amendments to the Fees Regulations 2012. However, the above "Explanatory Memorandum" states that "There are no plans to consolidate [the Fees Regulations 2012] in the immediate future".

Other Sources of Information:

  • February 2017: Fixing our broken housing market - White Paper (pdf) (link).
  • December 2017: Explanatory Memorandum to SI 2017 No. 1314 (pdf) (link).

Updates to the Planning Jungle website: