Planning Minister John Healey has confirmed a package of planning system reforms saving developers time and money to help them complete building projects during the recovery have now been approved by Parliament.

Businesses that need to extend existing planning permissions to allow more time to build new developments will now pay significantly lower fees which, along with other measures to improve the flexibility of planning permissions, will help save up to £69m a year, giving a valuable cash boost for developers so they can keep investing in new projects.

New measures that enable businesses and homeowners to extend existing planning permissions without the expense and red tape of a new planning application were introduced in October 2009.

The fees for extending planning permissions are now being reduced so the fee for a major development that was previously as high as £250,000 will now be £500, the fee for smaller developments that was as high as £3,000 will now be £170, and for householder projects the previous fee of £150 will be reduced to £50.

Read the CLG press release

Read the Dear Chief Planning Officer letter

Access the new Statutory Instrument

The Planning Portal’s PDF fee summary, which incorporates all the changes, and the online Fee Calculator, which incorporates changes to ‘other applications’ submitted under Schedule 1, Part 2 category 9(b), was updated on 26 February 2010.

Applications to extend the time limits for implementing planning permissions and non-material amendments are not yet included within the Portal’s online Fee Calculator, but will be incorporated when the applications can be applied for via the online service. Currently the forms can be downloaded from the Portal and are available below.

Non-material amendments form [PDF]

Time limit extension forms [PDF

The extracts above were taken from the Planning Portal News Round-Up dated 4^th March 2010.

A series of practice notes on managing responses to stalled development schemes has been published by the Advisory Team for Large Applications (ATLAS). 

The notes are in recognition of the challenges many local authorities and their partners are facing in developing a response to large-scale development schemes that have stalled as a result of the economic downturn.

Access the ‘Responsive Planning Practices for Changing Economic Times’ notes and ATLAS press release

This extract was taken from the Planning Portal News Round-Up dated 4th March 2010.

Evidence-based best practice guidance on the design and layout of generic clinical and clinical support spaces for use in healthcare settings.

Publish date:  Jan 2010

Housing minister John Healey said the fee freeze would save developers £23 million this year, money which can be reinvested into new projects that will sustain the UK construction sector through what is predicted to be a stale year for the economy.

Announcing the freeze, Healey said: ‘At a time when investing in new developments is difficult, and when access to funding is hard, it would be wrong to increase the costs of developers who will help drive economic recovery.

‘I recognise that as we start to work through economic recovery, we need to do what we can to keep builders on construction sites and keep plans on the table.

‘It is important that we react to the economic circumstances and listen to the needs of people, industry and developers and we have done just that.’

From the Architects Journal 21 January 2010.

Submit-a-Plan is the LABC (Local Authority Building Control)  National Portal for making electronic and offline Building Control applications to ANY Local Authority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as reporting dangerous structures.

The site has been designed as a single location for both the general public and professional users to submit Building Control applications directly to their intended Local Authority.  Users can also track the progress of their application online via dedicated portal DataSpace On-line.

The key features of Submit-a-Plan at a glance:

Free of charge to use

Works with all CAD applications and paper scans

Eliminates sending multiple paper plans (when submitted electronically)

Saves time and money

Send applications at any time

Environmentally friendly

Track the progress of your application online 

Free of charge application assistance

P+HS Architects are now registered to use this service, effective from today.  This will ensure that like Planning Applications submitted via the Planning Portal all Building Regulations submitted via Submit-a-Plan can be safely stored in one place.     

Turley Associates, with whom we work on planning matters, attended a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference this week, hosted by Lexington Communications. The guest speaker was Bob Neill MP, the Shadow Minister for Local Government and Planning. Following various announcements and comments in the press by Party members, he provided an update on how the Conservative Party intends to approach the planning system, should it gain power at the next election. This approach has potentially wide-ranging implications for the development industry.

• Neill confirmed that the planning system is likely to see further change, to refocus its operation to accord with the Conservative “localism” agenda
• As previously announced by the party, Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) would be abolished, removing strategic development and land requirements with the intention that these be determined locally
• The requirement for a 5 year supply of housing land would be retained, although the Party will offer clarification on how this calculation should be undertaken to ensure consistency. How the local requirement would be decided, in the absence of Regional guidance, was not addressed
• Local development would be incentivised through a commitment to Local Authorities that any development in their area would produce direct funding through the retention of Council Tax (at 100% for open market housing and 125% for affordable housing) and business rates (at 100%) at a local level, for a period of 6 years. This would replace central funding as a direct incentive for allowing and encouraging development in the area. The funds would not be ring-fenced
• There was no mention of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)
• The Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) would also abolished, to be replaced with a system based around the existing Planning Inspectorate and Ministerial control
• National Planning Statements (NPS’s) would be retained as a clear statement to help guide nationally significant projects, and to provide political accountability for major decisions. The agenda of reducing delays in the provision of major infrastructure would be retained
• Reducing delays would also be a wider theme in the new system, with the suggestion being made that sanctions may be introduced for key Statutory Consultees (Highways Agency, Environment Agency, etc) who unnecessarily or unduly delay planning applications
• A commitment was made to retain the elements of the system that work and to further examine how smaller-scale applications can be removed from Planning Officer’s schedules, to allow them to focus on important schemes where their skills are needed
• Finally, the assurance was given that transitional arrangements would be put in place to make sure that further delays would not result from the changes being set out
  

Hambleton Council have recently introduced a new requirement for a Sustainable Development Statement to be submitted with any planning application for 10 or more dwellings, or developments larger than 1,000 sqm.

A number of Planning Authorities now require these statements, so it is something worth checking before any new planning application.

Link to Hambleton’s Sustainable Development SPD

More than 40 locations are being considered as sites for new homes to ease a shortage of affordable housing in the Yorkshire Dales.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) received 118 suggestions of potential sites after an appeal to landowners. It has drawn up a shortlist of 44, which are now being investigated. The YDNPA said the response to its appeal had been “very good” but it wanted more suggestions. It specifically wants to hear about potential sites in the Grassington, Hawes, Reeth and Sedbergh areas. The YDNPA’s housing working group will eventually draw up a draft housing development plan which will go out to public consultation.

Housing officer Peter Stockton said: “The final list will depend on the response from technical consultees like the highways authority, the Environment Agency, our archaeologists and ecologists.

“It will probably be a lot shorter than the 40 or so sites currently going for further investigation.”

When it made its appeal to landowners in January, the YDNPA said the lack of affordable housing in the national park was a “serious problem”.

It said local people were being forced out of the area because of high house prices.

From BBC News Website 28 September 2009

The Government has announced that the power to extend the time limits for existing full planning permissions will apply to all eligible consents and not just those for major development.

That clarification has come in a letter from Steve Quartermain, Communities and Local Government chief planner, to chief planning officers in England.

The letter confirms that the new arrangements will come into force on 1 October and will cover both listed building and conservation area consents.

The changes will cover planning permissions which are extant both on 1 October and at the date of application and have not yet commenced.

Outline permissions can also be extended under this power, CLG has decided, provided they are extant both on 1 October and at the date of application, and have not yet commenced.

The department will publish updated guidance in early October.

It has also revealed that it is proposing different charges than consulted on earlier this year. CLG’s revised proposals are: £500 for major developments, £50 for householder developments and £170 for other sizes of development. Parliamentary approval is needed for the new charges.

Draft application forms are available for view on the Planning Portal and final versions will be available for use on 1 October.

Read Steve Quartermain’s letter to Chief Planning Officers.

The above was taken from the Planning Portal news roundup 24^th September 2009

HBN 11-01 Facilities for Primary and Community Care has now been issued. This superceeds any previous guidance on primary care, and provides information on new room sizes which have changed significantly from the previous guidance.

It also provides a new direction to establishing sizes of primary care premises, finally superceding the old “Red Book” [which really ceased to be relevant in 2003!]. Available from the KIP site, or via Technical Indexes for subscribers.

P+HS have a working spreadsheet for calculation of consulting and treatment rooms, in accordance with the methodology outline in the guide.

The housing industry and architects have welcomed the London Housing Design Guide, published last week by London mayor Boris Johnson’s office, despite some feeling that new proposals on space standards do not go far enough.

Read more in the AJ online article by Christopher Sell.

Please see below information received from the Planning Portal.

I have noticed that you’ve previously used the Planning Portal to submit your planning applications, but were you also aware that you can purchase your site location plans through our mapping service?

Even with online applications steadily increasing over the past few years, still many mapping suppliers are producing maps in paper format. The scanning of these paper maps is against Ordnance Survey copyright rules and can lead to applications being rejected.

To help you avoid this we have developed a new service that enables you to buy your maps electronically, benefits of the service include:

• Ability to view your map before you purchase it
• Assurance your map is up to date with the correct licensing for your application
• Facility to highlight boundaries and annotate the map without the need for additional software
• No need to convert file formats - maps are ready to uploaded to your electronic application

To ensure this service is easy to use, we have partnered with four Planning Portal accredited, leading mapping suppliers - Streetwise, Stanfords, Getmapping and eMapSite.com. This will give you the choice to use the supplier that best suits your needs, whilst ensuring your map will be accepted but every Local Authority in England and Wales.

To start benefiting from this new service today or to just have a look please click here .

For those looking for the guidance on how to brand our buildings have a look here.