Housing and planning minister John Healey has confirmed further reforms to the planning system in England, consulted on last year and recommended in the Killian Pretty Review, which will remove an estimated 10,000 full planning applications from the system.
This move follows the Improving Permitted Development (IPD) consultation which took forward recommendations from the Killian Pretty Review for removing the requirement to apply for planning permission for certain forms of non-domestic development.
Shops will now be able to extend their floor space by up to a maximum of 50 square metres without the need to apply for planning permission, and schools, hospitals and universities will be able to more easily build new facilities. These new rights will be subject to certain constraints which are designed to minimise impacts on neighbouring properties and the wider environment.
The measures just introduced focus on changes to permitted development, which remove the need to make a planning application. At a later date, replacement shop fronts and installing cash points will also be subject to a simpler, cheaper and quicker planning process, called prior approval.
These changes form a series of updates in response to the Killian Pretty Review which, when fully introduced, will save up to £180m a year for developers, ministers have estimated.
The changes to permitted development are set out in The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (England) Order 2010.
Steve Quartermain, the chief planner at Communities and Local Government, has sent a letter to all chief planning officers setting out these latest changes and other planning regulation moves. He explained that these measures, contained in a number of statutory instruments, ‘set out new arrangements in relation to the publicity of planning applications, information requirements for planning applications, and permitted development. The statutory instruments also take forward a number of other changes to the planning application and appeal process on which we have previously consulted, but are not directly in response to Killian Pretty’.
