As part of our ongoing work with local authorities on Smarter Planning, our account managers have been documenting the practices and processes that LPAs have been implementing around England and Wales.
Robin Vaissiere, our account manager for the South, recently visited Reigate and Banstead Borough Council Development Management (RBBC), which made the move to a paperless department in recent months and have offered to share their experiences with other authorities engaged in the process… Read more…
While our Portal Director Chris is temporarily working in a separate team putting together our bid to run the Planning Portal in the future, he’s also got other things on his mind, recently posting this on LinkedIn:
After a few weeks lay off with a dodgy knee i’ve decided to let the sin of pride win out over the sin of sloth and commit to the Bristol half marathon. I may end up walking half the distance but I’m going to go for it anyway. It just wouldn’t feel right taking the donations otherwise. So here I am a few weeks out asking for your support. Thanks. Chris
He’s raising money for St Mungo’s Broadway who provide beds and support to homeless people. If you can spare anything to help them and support him through what will no doubt be a painful 13 miles, then please visit his Just Giving page and make a donation.
The workflow of the Portal’s online application service doesn’t allow applications to be submitted to a Local Planning Authority (LPA) until the payment method is chosen.
When the online payment option is selected and a successful payment taken, the application is transferred to the LPA. This means the LPA doesn’t need to reconcile the payment with the received application.
This saves the LPA time and resources and avoids by far the most common cause of delayed registration or the invalidation of applications.
We’ve had lots of feedback from planning agents over the years on why they choose not to use this payment method.
Now it seems the tide is beginning to turn.
Now we’re seeing growing evidence that increasing numbers of planning agents, practices and organisations are using the online payment option, not just for small and minor applications but for submissions of all types and sizes.
We’re well aware of all the reasons why some planning agents don’t use this option, but it would be a great help for us to get feedback from those of you who do use it, particularly on what encouraged you to pay online and, perhaps more importantly, what benefits you have gained from doing so.
We realise choosing to pay online required some changes to your business practices and may have presented some hurdles which you have obviously overcome – we’d love to know what they were and how you resolved them.
By the way, the selected payment option is automatically added to the notification sent by the Portal to the LPA with each and every application.
From our Head of Corporate Development, Stuart Mockford:
…well no, not always.
Our Account Managers often receive calls from planning professionals that are desperate to get applications in at the last minute. These are usually to do with attachments – compressing detailed plans and drawings; dividing large documents (e.g. transport assessments, Environmental Impact Studies) or converting files into acceptable formats and so on. Read more…
UPDATE: I’ve been asked what the actual number was. It was a whopping 41, 483!
We saw an increase almost across the board on applications submitted through the Planning Portal last month, a large increase from July last year. Read more…
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has written to local authority Chief Planning Officers yesterday to announce that there will be a change to the fees for ‘prior approval applications for permitted development rights for change of use’ from 31 July 2014.
These changes apply to England only.
We have updated and published the Portal fee schedule ready for the change. You can download it here.
DCLG has released a PDF of the letter sent to LPAs covering the fee increase. For more details you can download it here.
The regulations (2014 No.2026) are also available online:
The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2014 No. 2026 has been published to legislation.gov.uk
Brandon Lewis has been promoted to the post of Minister for Planning and Housing as a result of the Government reshuffle announced by David Cameron this week.
The Government has decided to scrutinise planning appeal cases in, or close to, neighbourhood plan areas.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) announced this move in a written Parliamentary statement last week.
The Government has published the results of a consultation into proposals to allow house builders to meet carbon reduction targets off-site, and has outlined key aspects of the scheme that will be fleshed out further in amendments to the Infrastructure Bill, currently under scrutiny in the Lords.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has revoked a London council’s article 4 direction designed to remove office-to-home conversion permitted development rights from much of the borough’s area.
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