planning law news - March 2010
Welcome to the second edition of planning
law news, a monthly ebulletin on topical planning issues.
In this month's edition we look at the Community Infrastructure
Levy (CIL) and the planning system under a future Conservative
government.
Community Infrastructure Levy
The Government has recently published final regulations for
imposition of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), due to come
into effect on 6 April 2010. Some significant changes have
been made since the draft regulations were published last year.
These include:
- CIL will now be levied on the net increase in floorspace as a
result of the proposed development
- Payments of CIL can be made in-kind in the form of land
(including existing buildings and structures)
- The standard payment period has been extended from 28 days to
60 days and payments can be made in instalments
- The regulations prevent authorities from seeking the same
contribution towards infrastructure through planning obligations
and CIL
- Additional relief for charities
- 100% exemption from CIL for most types of affordable
housing
- Up to 100% relief in exceptional circumstances for development
that would otherwise not proceed
- The ability for authorities to draw the administrative costs of
CIL from CIL receipts.
Once the regulations come into force, it
will be for individual local authorities to decide whether or not
to introduce the charge, because CIL is a discretionary tool.
As we reported last month, almost 80% of local authorities are
either undecided or unlikely to implement the levy.
the planning system under a future Conservative government
The Conservative Party has published a green
paper setting out its proposals for reform of the planning system
in England. The measures include:
- abolishing Regional Spatial Strategies, Regional Planning
Bodies and national and regional house-building targets
- a more relaxed approach to changes of use of land and existing
buildings through a 'flexible zoning' system
- removing planning inspectors' powers to change local plans
- limiting appeals against local planning decisions to those
where either (i) the correct procedure was not followed in
assessing the application or (ii) the decision reached is in
contravention of the local plan
- allowing appeals against local planning decisions from local
residents as well as from developers
- establishing a presumption in favour of sustainable
development
- limiting the use of planning obligations to site-specific
remediation and adaptation, scrapping the Community Infrastructure
Levy and introducing a single unified local tariff
- abolishing the Infrastructure Planning Commission, while
retaining its expertise in a specific unit for major infrastructure
projects within the Planning Inspectorate
- consolidating all national planning policies into one document
– a national planning framework
- re-introducing a needs test for out-of-town retail development
and enabling councils to take competition issues into account when
preparing their local plans.
Retailers, especially the larger supermarket
chains, have expressed serious concern that the latter will add
complexity to the system and could hinder investment.
Meanwhile, organisations including the British Property
Federation have said that they are worried about a policy that
would allow third party appeals against planning permissions,
believing that this would be recipe for chaos.
