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Reason(s)
c) Category C – Medium Scale Development - £400 – Follow up meetings £200.
2-9 residential units
Non residential applications or changes of use with a floorspace of 100m2-
999m2
d) Category D – Small Scale Development - £150
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New Telecoms installation
Flat conversions
Single new houses
Change of use within shopping parades and other retail areas
There will be no charge for pre application planning advice on householder
applications, or other minor developments such as small changes of use (excluding
those in Category A above) shop fronts, small commercial floorspace extensions or
enforcement cases.
These charges will not apply to applications submitted by the Local Authority as
effectively we would be charging ourselves.
The proposed charges for advice will enable current ad hoc advice system to be
formalised. It will provide more consistent and documented advice for developers, who in
turn will have more certainty in the preparation and submission of planning applications.
This will lead to less wasted time and expense and also constitute an improvement to the
service in line with best value practices.
Implications:
Financial:
The Local Government Act 2003 allows local planning authorities to charge for
discretionary services in order to recover costs. Pre application advice is seen as
discretionary and many Authorities make a charge for specific types and scale of
applications. There is currently a financial implication in levels of officer time currently
expended in providing this advice free of charge. These costs involve direct costs as well
as overheads and additional associated costs. As a result we intend to charge for a
service which currently is given to developers free with no additional costs involved.
It is not known at this stage the income that would be generated from the introduction of
charging, especially in the current property market. The charge would be likely to deter a
number of speculative developers freeing up officer time for other projects.
The proposed charges are designed to recover the majority of the costs of providing the
service. Appendix 2 shows the proposed hourly rates and estimated hours for the staff
involved for Development categories A and C.
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