Recommendation 8

HM Government · verbatim extract Rejected

38. The Government recognises the importance of ensuring local plan-making is well-resourced to help deliver sustainable development and meeting community needs. However, we do not consider it appropriate to fund local plan-making through planning application fees. 39. Local plans serve the whole community, not just applicants, and therefore their costs should be met through wider local authority budgets rather than being borne by developers. That is why measures in the Planning and Infrastructure Act are deliberately targeted at ensuring LPAs can set their own planning fee where that is considered necessary to fully recover (but not exceed) the costs incurred in determining planning applications, and to ensure the fee income must be retained for spending on an LPA’s relevant planning function. 40. Allowing LPAs to set higher fees to contribute towards local plan-making could lead to excessively high planning fees. This would risk deterring development and investment at a time when we want to get Britain building. Our priority is to maintain a fair and proportionate fee structure that supports efficient decision-making without creating barriers to growth. 41. Nonetheless, the Government remains committed to achieving universal local plan coverage and supporting LPAs to progress their plans without delay. To help achieve this, we have provided over £19.8 million to 87 LPAs support the costs of local plan delivery, and £9.3 million to 133 LPAs to assist with Green Belt reviews. This targeted funding ensures that LPAs can address key challenges and accelerate plan preparation, and is flexible so authorities can use the funding or hiring additional staff or resource if required. 42. The Government also provided £2.85 million in grant funding this financial year to the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) to support LPAs in providing effective and efficient planning services, driving improvement and supporting the implementation of changes in the planning system. As part of this, PAS are supporting LPAs in developing the right infrastructure (ensuring people and processes are in place) to deliver a sound plan in 30 months. 43. Going forward, the Government committed an additional £48 million to strengthen planning capacity in the public sector, to be allocated across this Parliament. This will open new routes into planning, creating opportunities for graduates and experienced professionals to join and thrive in the sector. Of this, £28.8m is dedicated to MHCLG’s Planning Capacity & Capability Programme, supplementing existing budgets and enabling us to scale up delivery across the next three years.