The latest Government consultation on the planning service seeks to accelerate the planning system and covers 4 key areas. Read on for our managing director, Liz Fitzgerald’s expert opinion of the proposals associated with planning performance and the extension of time agreements.
How it started
Extensions of Time (EoT) were designed to be an agreed time period, beyond the statutory time period, in which identified issues and obstacles that arise during the course of an application can be resolved, leading (hopefully) to a positive resolution.
They were deemed to be of benefit to both the Local Planning Authority (LPA) and the Applicant to mitigate the need for costly subsequent applications that could have otherwise been avoided.
How it’s going
Some Authorities use them in exactly the way they were intended. Others, as identified in the consultation document, have become a mechanism to compensate for delays in decision-making, thus masking poor performance.
Experience has shown that many LPAs use them from the outset of submissions to compensate for a backlog of applications or lack of staff – acknowledging from day one that they will not be able to meet the statutory timescales.
Others have used EoT to ransom the release of a delayed decision, leaving Applicants with no other way of obtaining their permission without agreeing to the EoT.
It’s eye-opening to see that only 10% of LPAs determined 70% of non-major applications within the 8-week statutory period and an astonishing 1% of LPAs determined 60% or more major applications within the relevant 13- or 16-week statutory period.
Frustrating for developers
These figures certainly highlight the frustration experienced by developers with the planning process and show how difficult it is for planning consultants to advise clients on how long it will take to obtain a planning decision.
There will of course be legitimate uses of the EoT procedure within these figures, but an increase of 33% in the usage of the procedure from 2014-16 to 2021-23, shows how reliant the industry has become on the tool.
Backward step for householders
The consultation recommends the reduction in the performance targets associated with major and non-major applications and the removal of the ability to use EoT for householder applications.
Certainly, the removal of the ability to use EoT for householder applications should be a positive step for the local community. It seems perverse that reliance on EoT for these types of application should have arisen in the first instance.
However, it does potentially lead to an increase in the number of refusals, as the 8-week period will not always enable amendments to applications to be made, particularly if the application is not assessed by the Authority at the early stages of the submission.
This then potentially adds costs to the homeowner, through having to submit a second application and there no longer being the benefit of a ‘free go’.
It begs the question whether the amendment to the planning fees was premature and whether it should have been part of a wider consultation process that looked at all the implications.
There is no reason why householder applications couldn’t still benefit from the ‘free-go’, if EoT were removed – had the consultations been holistic in their approach.
Fewer targets, more appeals
Performance targets and monitoring strike us as simply more of the same – LPAs simply having lower targets to aim for.
This approach will not improve decision making. It will achieve one of two things: LPAs will continue to determine applications in the same manner they already do and run the risk of being placed into special measures; or they will simply refuse more applications to comply with their statutory time periods.
The latter is most likely, which of course will increase the number of appeals submitted. Effectively, Applicants will base most planning strategies on an application and appeal, rather than some time delays, as is the current position, to get a positive decision.
Lower quality customer service
There are undoubtedly many readers that are old enough to recall the change in name from Development Control to Development Management. The change in name was designed to change the perception of planning from one of control to a partnership relationship, whereby the mentality should shift from one of ‘is it good enough to approved’ to ‘is it bad enough to refuse’.
That change came with mixed feelings for many LPAs, but essentially it was a reminder that planning is a public, customer facing function of the Authority, aimed at delivering high quality development across the administrative area, as opposed to being a dark art hidden at the back of the Council Offices.
Facilitating the reduction in use of EoT and reducing performance targets will only serve to emphasise the bureaucratic nature of planning. It will once again become a numbers game, reducing the quality of customer service and decision making.
It may accelerate the LPA planning service, but it may well increase the number of appeals, which will in turn delay the approval of schemes and delivery of much needed housing.
This element of the consultation feels like a knee-jerk reaction to criticism on the timeliness of decision making, as opposed to a better understanding as to why decisions are slow.
The take home
EoT have their place in the processing of planning applications, but reduced performance targets and the removal of the ability to use them will only be detrimental to the Applicant, therefore the effectiveness of the system overall and the delivery of development which assists the wider economy.
Next week, join me as I write about another of the Government’s consultation hot topics – the implications of the proposals for varying and overlapping planning permissions.
