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A Welsh Government consultation (closing 16/01/25) seeks to improve planning services by addressing fee increases, Full Cost Recovery (FCR), and skills gaps, with proposed changes – starting summer 2025 – to include inflation-linked adjustments, doubling retrospective application fees, and introducing appeal fees to ensure sustainable resourcing.
The Welsh Government writes:
…The Welsh Government considers that if our vision for the development management system is to be realised we need to ensure local planning authorities have the necessary resources and use these in the most efficient and effective way.
This consultation document puts forward proposals for changes to the system of planning fees to help achieve this aim.
1. Introduction and Overview
Introduction
… the Welsh Government set out in the ‘Positive Planning’ consultation document that we want a planning system that enables appropriate development. It needs to support national, local and community objectives for infrastructure, new homes and development that supports business growth and jobs. To ensure the development management system helps deliver this vision we need to ensure local planning authorities (LPAs) have the necessary resources and that they are used in the most efficient and effective manner. To help achieve this, this consultation paper puts forward changes to fees that accompany planning applications.
This paper responds to the evidence base1 which suggests that the quality and timeliness of the service provided by LPAs is being affected by stretched resources available to the planning services within authorities. It identified a need to undertake a review of planning application fees. In response to this work, this paper puts forward three main changes to the system of planning fees; these are:
– an increase in fee levels, as detailed in section two of this paper;
– to provide a refund of the application fee where an application remains undetermined after a period of time, as detailed in section three of this paper and,
– to extend the scope of planning fees, as detailed in section three of this paper.
The consultation paper is also accompanied by a draft partial Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA). This identifies the costs and benefits of our proposals should they be taken forward following consultation. Should, as a result of the consultation, changes be made to the proposals, the impact of the proposals will be reassessed. This is a partial RIA and where we are uncertain of our preferred option we have not undertaken an assessment.
