September
2008
Savills top planner blasts new planning rules
Roger Hepher, Head of National Planning and Regeneration at Savills, has made a strong criticism of the new rules introduced earlier in the year about planning application documents.
In a response to the Killian-Pretty review of the planning application system, Hepher draws attention to the fact that local Councils now hold all the cards when it comes to validating planning applications: if a Council officer decides that something is missing or insufficient, they can refuse to validate the application, and the applicant has no right of appeal against this refusal.
Under the old arrangements, if a Council refused to validate an application, the applicant could nevertheless appeal to the Secretary of State on grounds of non-determination after a number of weeks, hoping to convince an inspector that the submitted material was appropriate and sufficient. This was an important check on some authorities' over-zealous bureaucracy.
Hepher says that the situation is made worse because many authorities appear to be deliberately nit-picking and refusing to validate applications in order to give them more time to deal with application backlogs and staff shortages.
"This is this both slowing down the system and adding considerably to applicants' costs, at a time when the Government is supposed to be encouraging economic growth. It is probably an example of the law of unintended consequences, and I hope Killian and Pretty will recognise that a simple - but important - change in the rules is needed to restore applicants' ability to make proper use of the appeal system".
CONTACT INFORMATION
Roger Hepher - Director
+44 (0) 20 3320 8272
rhepher@savills.com
Back to top
|
