New Draft Fees Order Published - Planning Fees to rise on 1 April 2025
On Monday, the Government laid a draft statutory instrument before parliament that, once made, will increase a wide range of planning application fees in England.
Assuming nothing de-rails its adoption, the Order will take effect on 1 April 2025.
In summary, the proposed fee increases are as follows:
Householder Applications
- Increase the fee for applications for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a single dwellinghouse from £258 to £528.
- Increase the fee for applications for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of two or more dwellinghouses from £509 to £1,043.
- The fee of £258 for householder developments related to small-scale operations within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse is not changing.
Prior Approvals
- The flat fee for prior approval applications that don't involve building operations is increasing from £120 to £240;
- The flat fee for prior approval applications that involve building operations is increasing from £258 to £516;
- The fee for prior approvals relating to the change of use of Class E uses to residential (under Class MA of the GDPO) is increased from £125 per dwellinghouse to £250 per dwellinghouse;
- The fees for prior approvals related to the construction of new dwellinghouses are not changing.
It is interesting that MHCLG has not opted to extend the principle of charging “per dwelling” to other prior approval applications that involve the change of use to residential (such as sui-generis to resi under Class N of the GDPO, B8/industrial to resi conversions under Class P or Class PA; or Class Q Agricultural conversions).
Instead, it remains limited specifically to applications under Class MA of the GPDO.
Given that these other prior approval applications are similarly labour intensive, to those attached to Class MA, I can only assume it is because the other PD rights allowing conversion to residential are either much less commonly used or tend to result in smaller developments.
Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see if this is viewed in future years as anomaly to be corrected or an intended feature of the fees order from here on out.
Section 73 Applications
There is a new three-tier fee structure for section 73 applications:
- £86 for householder applications
- £586 for non-major development; and
- £2,000 for major development
Discharge of Conditions
The fee for an application for approval of details reserved by condition is increasing from:
- £43 to £86 for householders and
- £145 to £298 for any other development
Fee for submission of a Biodiversity Gain Plan is increasing from £145 to £298.
“Corrections”
The Order also takes the opportunity to “correct” the fee levels for two miscellaneous fee categories which were apparently set too low by mistake:
- the fee for an outline application for the erection of a building where the area of gross floor created exceeds 3,750 square metres is increasing to £31,385.
- the fee for an application for the erection of an agricultural building, where the gross floor space created is between 1,000 metres and 4,215 square metres, is increasing to £5,077.
Indexation
As planning application fees are now subject to indexation, the draft order also changes the “fee increase date” for the amended rates.
The increased fee rates will be fixed for a year and not updated (to take account on inflation) until 1 April 2026.
Conclusion
The draft fees order follows hot on the heels of the publication of the skills and resources survey, last week. That survey laid bare just how urgently additional resources were needed by LPAs. This order will help to fund some of those resources.
Whilst most* of the fee increases are relatively modest; they apply to a vast number of applications. As such, the additional revenue raised by this latest fee increase could be significant.
Given the well-known resourcing issues in LPAs, the additional funding will be welcomed by many in the public sector.
Money does not, of course, magic up new planners (or other skilled professionals) but, as a well known supermarket once said, every little helps..… providing that most of the additional funding stays within planning services.
After all, planning fees are still not officially ring-fenced.
*There are some exceptions
These Regulations increase the fee for applications for the enlargement, improvement
or other alteration of a single dwellinghouse from £258 to £528 (an increase of 105%)
and from £509 to £1,043 (105%) for two or more dwellinghouses. This is estimated to
be the cost for local planning authorities to determine these applications. Raising the
fees to these levels will provide an important income boost for local planning
authorities, enhancing their capacity to efficiently process these applications. This increase in resources will benefit the wider planning application service allowing all
users to benefit. The fee of £258 will remain unchanged for householder
developments related to small-scale operations within the curtilage of a
dwellinghouse, such as the construction of gates, fences, and walls, as these
applications typically involve less complex considerations.”
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