New Legislation – relating to local authority consultations (01/04/2018 and 01/06/2018) …

The following 1 new Statutory Instrument (SI) comes into force on 01/04/2018 and 01/06/2018:

New Legislation:

  • April 2018 and June 2018: SI 2018 No. 119 - The Town and Country Planning (Local Authority Consultations etc.) (England) Order 2018 (pdf) (link).
  • UPDATE: June 2018: SI 2018 No. 119 - Correction (pdf) (link).

Notes:

  • The above SI includes amendments to the following SIs:
    - GPDO 2015.
    - DMPO 2015.
    - LBCA Regulations 1990.
    - Permission in Principle Order 2017.
    - The Town and Country Planning (Section 62A Applications) (Procedure and Consequential Amendments) Order 2013.
  • Amendments to the GPDO: On 01/06/2018, Part 1 Class A, Part 3 paragraph W, Part 4 Class E, Part 7 Class C, Part 14 Class J, and Part 16 Class A are amended so that, for the purpose of calculating the minimum consultation period, any day which is a public holiday must be disregarded.
  • The "Explanatory Memorandum" (pdf) (link) to SI 2018 No. 119 includes the following information:
    - "The Town and Country Planning (Local Authority Consultations etc.) (England) Order 2018 amends the [above SIs] to (1) extend periods of public consultation before decisions are made to grant planning permission, permission in principle, listed building consent and certain prior approvals for development which is the subject of permitted development rights by one day for each bank or public holiday which occurs during specified periods, (2) amends article 40 of DMPO to require each local planning authority to include certain details about a housing prior approval application in its planning register and (3) reintroduces to DMPO a definition of “relevant nuclear site” which appeared in a previous version of DMPO.".

Comments by the Planning Jungle website:

  • In my opinion, the above SI 2018 No. 119 provides an example of how an idea that sounds relatively simple in theory can become relatively complicated in practice. The above SI makes 10 pages of amendments to 5 other SIs to address an issue (i.e. the consultation period includes a bank holiday) for which it's debatable whether there was actually any problem in the first place.
  • It should be noted that any software used by local authorities to calculate the end dates for consultation periods will need to be updated to incorporate the above amendments. This is not necessarily a straightforward process - e.g. Microsoft Excel is unable to take account of bank holidays unless the user inputs a specific list of bank holidays (and keeps this list up-to-date every year).
  • Furthermore, the above amendments are made significantly more complicated by the fact that they apply to some types of applications, but not to others. For example, as shown by the "Explanatory Note" (link) at the end of the above SI, the extended consultation periods apply to an application for planning permission in most cases, but do not apply "when the application is (a) subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment and is accompanied by an environmental statement under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 (S.I. 2017/571) or (b) in relation to notice given by an applicant for planning permission under article 13 of DMPO or (c) in relation to notice given by a local planning  authority to a relevant railway infrastructure manager under article 16 of DMPO".

Other Sources of Information:

  • January 2018: "Explanatory Memorandum" to SI 2018 No. 119 (pdf) (link).

Updates to the Planning Jungle website: