Out-Law News 1 min. read
05 Jun 2013, 2:01 pm
The Growth and Infrastructure Act, which gained Royal Assent in April, introduced an option for planning applications to be submitted directly to the Planning Inspectorate where the local authority for the area has been designated for that purpose.
Under the new rules, the Secretary of State may designate a local authority if he considers it is not "adequately performing its function of determining planning applications". The guidance sets out that local authorities will be assessed on the basis of the speed they determine major planning applications and the quality of the decisions.
The speed threshold is set where 30% or fewer of an authority's decisions are made within the statutory determination period.
The quality measure will be assessed based on the number of major planning applications decisions that are overturned at appeal. The threshold is set where 20% or more of such decisions are overturned. A local authority will not be liable for designation under this measure if it has decided ten or fewer applications for major developments.
The assessment period for both measures will be the two year period prior to designation.
The guidance says that the Secretary of State will decide annually whether any designations should be lifted. A decision to lift a designation will be based on the potential capability of the authority to deal effectively with major applications in the future and its effectiveness in dealing with such applications during the designation period.
The Government launched a consultation on the proposed designation thresholds in November last year. It said in a response (41-page / 196KB PDF) to the consultation that where applications are submitted to the Secretary of State, a local hearing will be appropriate in "most cases" rather than written representations.
