What assessment his Department has made of the effect of recent changes to the level of fees for planning applications on the capacity of local authorities to process such applications.
Answered on
18 June 2018
In introducing the 20 per cent increase in planning fees in January, all local planning authorities committed to ring-fence this additional income to increase the capacity of their planning departments. Based on current activity the uplift in planning fees could generate over £75 million of additional fee income annually for local authorities. This is equal to the average salary of approximately 1600 planners and other professionals who play a role in the planning process.
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