With the ongoing consultation on the proposed increase in application fees, we now receive notification of an increase in the service charge fee associated with the submission of an application via the Planning Portal.
The current fee is £32.20 (incl VAT), the latest increase sees the service charge almost doubling to £64 (incl VAT) in early May.
It is acknowledged that costs have risen for everyone and therefore some increase was expected, but to double the charge takes justification.
The Portal have advised that the increase is largely due to the new mapping features which requires site location plans to be made via the Portal, apparently negating the need for additional mapping data to be purchased prior to submitting an application.
With many applications, mapping data is required for more than just the site location plan. Therefore it begs the question as to what benefit this service will be to most developers, as opposed to just an additional cost per submission.
For householders, potentially submitting their own application, this mapping service may be of benefit. But with an application fee of £206, this increased service charge hikes the cost by almost a third.
For condition discharge applications, where a site location plan is not required for validation purposes, this service charge will still be incurred, increasing the existing cost from £148.20 (incl service charge) to £180 (incl service charge).
At what point does the Planning Portal become cost abortive and we resort to sending applications to the Local Planning Authority via email again, increasing the admin responsibilities to them?
