Under proposals released by the government today councils may be able to compete to process planning applications and be able to offer fast-track application services.
The proposals, which aim to increase local choice by giving applicants the option of submitting their plans to the local council, a competing council or a government-approved organisation that would process applications up until the decision point, have been put out to consultation.
However, final decision-making on planning applications would remain with the local council, meaning that any change may not be that radical.
Professor Noble Francis, economics director at the Construction Products Association, told Construction Manager: “The government’s consultation proposals may help on the admin side of processing planning applications, but they are not a game changer overall in terms of time taken to make a decision.
"Effectively, if a local authority planning division has spare resource, it can utilise it to process applications of other authorities but the decision would still be with the local authority where the planning application has been requested."
Professor Noble Francis, economics director, Construction Products Association
“Effectively, if a local authority planning division has spare resource, it can utilise it to process applications of other authorities but the decision would still be with the local authority where the planning application has been requested.”
Noble continued: “There aren’t too many planning divisions that have lots of extra resource sitting around after funding cuts over the last few years and even then the final decision is still reliant upon the local planning division that is likely to be resource constrained.
“So, it helps on administrative processing but to address the serious issues of time taken to get from planning application to approval then local authorities need additional finance for planning divisions, not just for admin processing but to ensure the decision goes through efficiently.”
The proposals are part of a wider consultation that includes plans to make any future increases in councils’ fees for processing planning applications dependent on their performance in terms of speed and quality of decisions.
Other measures in the consultation cover:
- Details of how a new planning “permission in principle” approach will work in practice;
- How councils will run brownfield land and small sites registers;
- Speeding up the neighbourhood planning process;
- Improving handling of planning applications with new thresholds for designating councils as poor performers;
- Extending permitted development rights for free schools.
Communities secretary Greg Clark said: “Council planning departments play a vital role in getting local housebuilding off the ground, but for too long they have had no incentive to get things done quickly or better, resulting in drawn out applications and local frustration.
“These proposals will be a boost for house builders looking to build much-needed new homes for hard-working families and first time buyers, and for local people looking to get a planning permission for home improvements through their local council quicker.”
