Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2016 to Question 46903, on planning permission, if the proposed increase in planning fees will provide extra funding to local authorities to implement the tightened Planning Guarantee.

We consulted earlier this year on a proposal to increase national fees in line with inflation since the last fee increase in 2012 for those authorities that are performing well. We are currently considering the responses to the consultation and will publish our response in due course.

Delays in determining planning application can increase costs for developers, reduce developers’ confidence to invest in sites and provide greater uncertainty for communities. Local planning authorities have a responsibility to determine applications on time and it is not unreasonable that an applicant should be due a refund if an authority has failed to determine their application five weeks after the statutory time period has ended. As I previously set out, there are no plans to provide access to funding to cover the costs authorities incur by their own poor performance.