Communities and Local Government
A selection of images representing communities.
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Key facts
Local planning authorities made 340,000 decisions on householder applications in 2004-05. (53% of the total of all planning applications). Around 90% of these were approved.
The number of planning decisions relating to householders has doubled over the last decade (see table above). This growth is putting an increasing strain on the resources of local authorities and the Planning Inspectorate, which is dealing with a steadily growing casework of appeals.
A great deal has already been done to manage this growth. Best value targets and Planning Delivery Grant have encouraged local authorities to turn round minor applications faster than ever before - 84% of householder applications were determined within eight weeks in the first part of 2004, a year on year improvement of seven percentage points.
But householders continue to find the process frustrating and confusing. They are faced at best with two entirely distinct planning and building regulations regimes, often administered quite separately, and may also have to grapple with separate regimes for listed buildings and conservation areas.
It may not always be clear whether a planning application is needed - even to planning officers. The relevant legislation, the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order (GPDO) dates back over 50 years and is difficult to interpret. It uses an arbitrary, volume-based approach, which is often inconsistently applied, because there is no clear guidance.
With the need to process increasing numbers of householder applications, scarce local planning expertise is diverted away from strategic issues that in the long term should have a higher priority. Planners often have to resolve disputes between neighbours rather than working on planning issues affecting the whole community.
