Planning Performance/S106 Contributions Consultation 4th May

[cjard]

For anyone who is interesting in putting forward an opinion on proposed reforms to the planning system in areas of performance and S106 contributions, they'd do well to read the consultation documents here and respond before 4th May:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/planning-performance-and-planning-contributions

Essentially, it looks like central government is looking to encourage councils to speed up decision making by raising the threshold for designating a council as underperforming. This might be a good opportunity for people to stick their oar in if they feel councils engage in tactics to avoid racking up negative statistics with central govt.
They're also looking to formalise the approach that was implied in earlier (i.e. 10 years ago) circulars that sites smaller than 10 units shouldn't have a liability to affordable housing contributions - while [to my mind] in the earlier circulars it was clear that it was never central govt's intention to require AH from small sites, councils took a different slant and knowing that a sub-10 unit site could never provide 10% affordable housing, because it's not possible to build a fraction of a unit, they sought financial contributions instead

 

[angelboy]

Bummer that I've just got to this. Today!!!

 

[tony1851]

As regards the speed of decision-making element of this consultation, it may miss the point.

One of the biggest gripes is what comes earlier - ie the validation process.

LPAs can drag their feet on registering an application by asking for all sorts of superfluous reports and other nonsense. Many of these are asked for by admin staff as a matter of course, and who may have no real knowledge of what information may be required by the planning officer.

There is of course a right of appeal against a council for non-registration, but what developer or householder wants to go through that process, which takes even longer? And LPAs know that.

 

[cjard]

Ey well.. I emailed them about it anyway, asked for it to be tacked onto the end of my original representation on 02 May. Cheers Tony