Government could announce proposals to allow councils to set own planning fees by summer recess

The Government ran a consultation on its plans to decentralise the planning application fees process last year, but it was not acted upon amid fears that developers would have insufficient certainty on the cost of submitting planning applications.

The Government had planned to implement the consultation proposals by April 2011, but there has not been an official announcement from DCLG since the consultation.

However, the Government said this week that it hoped the issue would be resolved in the coming weeks, according to Planning Magazine. The plans were revealed by Shona Dunn, director of planning at DCLG, during a planning event with local authorities.

"I very much hope that in the next few weeks we will set out the way forward. I’m using those words very deliberately because I really can’t give you any more detail on what that way forward will be because I need to leave that to Ministers," said Dunn, according to the report.

"I hope that that will be in the next few weeks and, given that we’ve got the recess coming up shortly, I hope that gives you the timeframe which we are hopefully able to stick to," she said.

The planning application fee proposals aimed to reduce the number of planning applications that have to be subsidised by the local authority, and therefore by local taxpayers. The consultation documents showed that the majority of councils received less in planning application fees than they spent processing applications.

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) said that the inconsistencies and potential increases in fees were of great importance, in response to last year's consultation.  The Government must ensure that "fee structures are reasonable and transparent...and that safeguards are in place", the RTPI said.

Westminster City Council led a campaign in November 2011, calling on the Government to let local planning authorities set their own fees. "[Councils are] either unable to charge for, or are required to subsidise, a significant proportion of the applications we handle every year", a group of Council's said in a letter to Clark.

Under current legislation, there is no charge attached to applications for listed buildings, conservation area consents or for tree works. Westminster City Council spends £5 million a year of taxpayers' money subsidising half of its 10,500 planning applications which it is not allowed to charge for.

Dunn also commented on the impeding abolition of Regional Strategies during the CLG planning event, and said that the Government is still working through the consultation responses on the environmental assessments into their proposed abolition.  There were "quite complicated and quite complex responses," said Dunn. "That’s a process we are still working through, and it’s not one we are prepared to hurry."