Purpose

Reasons for the decision

 

Pre-application fees are discretionary and are
charged for services offered to applicants seeking advice prior to submitting an application. The charges are intended to be
charged on a cost recovery basis and these charges have been updated to reflect
current costs of delivering the service. This has no bearing upon statutory
(nationally set) planning fees but it is intended to
introduce the charges to coincide with the national introduction of new
planning application fees (6th December) so that applicants and
agents are presented with a single stage update in charges for planning-related
services.

 

Alternative options
considered and rejected

Delay
introduction to 1 April 2024 – rejected because we would be failing to reflect
latest calculations of cost recovery which would have an impact on resourcing
of service delivery. 

 

Content

To introduce revised discretionary pre-application charges in accordance
with updated cost recovery calculations – effective from 6 December 2023.