Planning Application not even Assigned and Officer after 3 months

[designgrey]

I applied for planning in October (Householder). It came back as invalid because the roof lights werent shown as a dotted ling on the ground floor plan(?), but that's not the issue. It was validated in November and I have contacted then (12 weeks later) for a decision but they say ....

"Your application is still awaiting to be allocated to a case officer. We have been experiencing significant delays with the allocation procedure due to an unprecedented amount of applications causing a backlog. Web have employed additional support to alleviate this. The current procedure in place is to allocate householder applications in batches based on the date they were made, and there is a several month delay between the point an application was made valid and when it is allocated to a case officer. Unfortunately I’m unable to provide a specific date for when this application will be allocated.
Apologies I don’t have more information for you at this time."

12 weeks and it hasn't even been allocated an Officer with no indication of when it may be.

what, if anything can I do?

Thanks

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Not much, you're not alone, keep the faith, many local authority's are similar, all started during covid but doesn't seem to have recovered well, now it's the cure-all excuse for any local authority/public service to defend any delays/poor service. Just keep ringing up each week and keep an eye out for any developments online including the officer name to appear, don't lose your **** that won't help. Has the public consultation period finished now? After 8eight weeks they should have ask your written consent to extend the decision period, if they didn't then you can appeal to the Secretary of State but that could take many months and probably won't do you any favours. In reality an officer's input to decide a domestic application is very little (perhaps a half day's work in total) so there's not much for them to do once hey have be assigned, so when they do assign an officer it should only be a few weeks from then on.

 

[wessex101]

Welcome to the new normal. It is ridiculous but a lot of local authorities are still "working" from home. One of the authorities I deal with was taking 12 weeks just to validate applications! although they have just started to improve slightly.
As freddie said there is not much you can do. Go to appeal but that will take at least 6 months, probably longer. If you kick up a fuss you can guarantee a disgruntled planning officer will reject your application and probably every application you submit from now on. That's if you can even speak to a planning officer, around here they do not answer the phone, do not reply to messages and do not reply to emails.
Poor darlings are rushed off their feet watching Netflix and taking the dog for a walk.

 

[designgrey]

Not much, you're not alone, keep the faith, many local authority's are similar, all started during covid but doesn't seem to have recovered well, now it's the cure-all excuse for any local authority/public service to defend any delays/poor service. Just keep ringing up each week and keep an eye out for any developments online including the officer name to appear, don't lose your **** that won't help. Has the public consultation period finished now? After 8eight weeks they should have ask your written consent to extend the decision period, if they didn't then you can appeal to the Secretary of State but that could take many months and probably won't do you any favours. In reality an officer's input to decide a domestic application is very little (perhaps a half day's work in total) so there's not much for them to do once hey have be assigned, so when they do assign an officer it should only be a few weeks from then on.

Thanks for that. The point is that there hasn't been a Public Consultation, or anything, because it hasn't been assigned to an Officer. It has literally been validated (12 weeks ago) and stopped. If they are so far behind, surely they shouldn't be accepting more applications after mine?

 

[designgrey]

Welcome to the new normal. It is ridiculous but a lot of local authorities are still "working" from home. One of the authorities I deal with was taking 12 weeks just to validate applications! although they have just started to improve slightly.
As freddie said there is not much you can do. Go to appeal but that will take at least 6 months, probably longer. If you kick up a fuss you can guarantee a disgruntled planning officer will reject your application and probably every application you submit from now on. That's if you can even speak to a planning officer, around here they do not answer the phone, do not reply to messages and do not reply to emails.
Poor darlings are rushed off their feet watching Netflix and taking the dog for a walk.

The most I have experienced is 8 weeks above the normal 8 weeks. That was submission to decision. This is something else, validated 12 weeks ago then stopped with nothing in sight.

 

[wessex101]

I don't think they can stop taking applications as it is a statutory duty. I suspect that the backlog has got so out of control they have decided to just stop allocating new applications to officers.
You can see their point, why keeping allocating them to officers when they've already got 3 months worth of applications based on the current "shirking from home" rate of progress.
I had a planning officer whinging at me recently because I had the audacity to ask if there was any feedback on my pre-application after 3 months of silence. Only to be told I was still number 25 in her pre-applications list.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

They could still have done the public consultation, that absolutely doesn't need an officer to be assigned, the officer would never do that anyway, just the planing admin team.

 

[Notch7]

This is madness, delays at the planning stage like this are harming the construction sector at a time when we desperately need growth.

 

[jeds]

One of my applications was validated 27 June 2022 and was not allocated to an officer until 19 December.

In the couple of weeks before it was allocated I scanned the decided applications online and found several similar ones that were validated several months after ours but had been decided. I emailed BCC and asked them how I get our application added to the 'preferential' list? Of course they emailed back saying that applications were allocated in strict order and there was no preferential treatment. I emailed them the details of 4 or 5 applications and asked them to explain; how then did these become allocated, and even decided, when my application was not yet even allocated?

Got nothing back but the application was allocated the following week.

 

[jeds]

PS. the above was Bristol City Council. Most of my applications are South Gloucestershire and I have to say, they are allocated promptly and are usually decided within a week or so of the target date.

 

[Mottie]

Welcome to the new normal. It is ridiculous but a lot of local authorities are still "working" from home.

Apart from saving on office space, large companies have found out that WFH is an excuse to not do anything. Just today I have been trying to speak to a manager in Thames Water. Of course, I was told that they will 'put in a request' for a manager to call me within 4 hours. When I told them I'd hold, I was told they cannot ask one as they are working from home and have to email them. When they do phone up, it’s a 'manager' of the call assistants or a 'manager' of one of the sub-contractors who, of course, can’t answer my question do the whole 4 hour wait for a callback clock resets and starts again. Flucking frustrating!

 

[johnny2007]

Here in west London we found the best loophole to avoid these delays and vindictive planning officers.
Just build under PD and as they're "short of staff", they won't have anyone checking on your project.
Even BC now works remotely, they just ask for pictures.
How do they know where and when those pictures were taken???

 

[cwhaley]

Welcome to the new normal. It is ridiculous but a lot of local authorities are still "working" from home. One of the authorities I deal with was taking 12 weeks just to validate applications! although they have just started to improve slightly.
As freddie said there is not much you can do. Go to appeal but that will take at least 6 months, probably longer. If you kick up a fuss you can guarantee a disgruntled planning officer will reject your application and probably every application you submit from now on. That's if you can even speak to a planning officer, around here they do not answer the phone, do not reply to messages and do not reply to emails.
Poor darlings are rushed off their feet watching Netflix and taking the dog for a walk.

This issue is the backlog in work -- it has nothing to do with where people are working. There is a backlog of work in a whole range of industries and it's all because everything essentially stopped during covid. My industry is inundated with them as are multiple others of people I know.

I've actually never had the 'luxury' of working from home. It has been offered to me in the past, but I was one of those who preferred the routine and social side of getting up to go to a place of work every day. Those who do work from home I have found are still working on things into the evening.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Local Authority planning officers working into the evening to do a few hours extra for free! PMSL!

 

[tony1851]

The most I have experienced is 8 weeks above the normal 8 weeks. That was submission to decision. This is something else, validated 12 weeks ago then stopped with nothing in sight.

I'll bet they banked your application fee pretty quickly, though.