Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2023 - Motion to Approve

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords am 4:30 pm ar 17 Hydref 2023.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Baroness Pinnock Baroness Pinnock Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Levelling Up, Communities and Local Government) 4:30, 17 Hydref 2023

I thank the noble Lord; that probably is the explanation. However, it would be good to hear the Minister to confirm that.

The issue I still have is that if we do not have full cost recovery, local planning authorities will not be able to appoint all the planning officers that they need to provide an efficient and effective service. We know that the Local Government Association and other professional bodies have indicated that 58% of councils overall and 83% of county councils have trouble filling planning posts, and the RTPI reckons that one in 10 planning posts are currently not filled. Therefore, unless the fees are increased more than is proposed here, that challenge will remain, which will then lead to a less efficient and effective planning service. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to that, because it is at the heart of what is proposed today.

The other significant issue I have is with the way the planning guarantee works in practice. Of course, it is right to have a requirement to fulfil confirmation of planning applications in a timely way, but the starting point of a planning guarantee is that an application is “valid”. This can mean that the applicant has supplied the relevant information, but it does not mean that the content of the information is of the necessary standard. Herein lies the problem.

I have personally seen major applications that have done a cut and paste job—for instance, on a traffic assessment—from another application in another part of the country and put it into a major planning application; it was a commercial planning application, as it so happened. It was therefore valid in the sense that a traffic assessment had been included, but the content of that traffic assessment or any other part of the planning application had to be resubmitted because it was failing in what it should have done. If the planning guarantee is to be meaningful, it must surely be a requirement not only that an applicant fulfils the tick-box of having put in all the relevant parts of an application but that the content of those elements of a planning application are fulfilled properly. Again, I would like to hear from the Minister how that can be resolved, because some applicants play games with the planning process and game the service in that way.

I support annual indexation. That is a positive move by the Government which I welcome. It does, however, set in stone the subsidy from local authorities to the local planning service, and that has to change, because it will mean that council tax payers are subsidising the service for ever.

The only other point I wish to make is about the removal of the “free go”. That is a good move, and I am pleased that the Government are doing it. Again, there was a bit of gaming going on by some planning applicants to put in an application as a trial, see what happened and put in a free go when they thought they knew which direction of travel would be acceptable. So that is right. If we are going to have an efficient and effective planning service, the requirement on the applicants as well as those determining the application has to be of a level playing field of honesty and trust. With that, I look forward to what the Minister has to say and urge her to think again on full cost recovery.