Making Changes to Planning Permissions
As from 1st October 2009 new Regulations come into effect which allow developers to apply to extend the life of a planning permission and to allow for minor amendments to be made to existing planning permissions. Heralded as a major change to planning procedure, this will allow more flexibility when wishing to delay developments or change schemes after they have been granted planning permission.
Associate and specialist planning lawyer Louise Whitehead explains more.
Extending the time to Develop
New application forms and procedures will be introduced on 1st October 2009 so that a simplified application can be made to effectively renew a planning permission by extending the period for commencement of development.
The only provisos are that the planning permission must still be extant at 1st October 2009 and also at the date of the application to extend the time period and, furthermore, there must have been no commencement of development pursuant to the planning permission. Extant means, in the case of outline planning permissions, that the period for submission of reserved matters has not passed or if it has passed an application for reserved matters approval must have been submitted.
It is intended that the fee for an application to extend the time period for development for major developments would be £500, for household developments £50 and for any other size of development £170. However, Parliamentary approval is required to set those new charges and until that has been given, applications will incur the normal level of fee for a wholly new planning application for the scheme which will be substantially higher.
These new powers for planning permission time limits to be extended will apply to both full and outline planning permissions and also listed building and conservation area consents.
However, it would appear that this procedure could not be used to extend the period of time for the submission of reserved matters, before the persiod set in the original outline planning permission.
Non-material amendments
From 1st October 2009 it will also be possible to apply to make a non-material amendment to an existing planning permission. This is a power introduced as a new Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Applications for non-material amendments can only be made to planning permissions, not listed building consents or conservation area consents.
It is anticipated that this change will be welcomed by developers as it will substantially speed up the process of obtaining amendments to planning permissions. Developers are continuingly frustrated by the need to submit a wholly new planning application for any amendment to the scheme, however small.
For these new forms of application, it will not be necessary to submit full details of the scheme again, nor will it be necessary to submit a design and access statement. The local planning authority will only deal with the amendment (not the whole scheme) and there will be no fee payable.
Although these appear very small changes to planning legislation, their impact for developers is potentially enormous as this will enable changes to be made to existing planning permissions which in the current climate may be essential to enable the development of sites in the future.
For more information on the changes to planning permission, please contact Louise Whitehead on louise.whitehead@harveyingram.com or call 0116 257 4452.