Council Charges for Planning/BC Documents

[Ferdinand]

My Council has just introduced a policy of "discretionary charges" (*) for obtaining copies of Planning and Building Control Documents. Does anyone have any comparative examples, or any other comments as to legality etc?

 

I need to try one or two methods that have been free previously, and see what happens with all the records available by online searches - since my Council has added oodles of historic and building control information docs, as I have posted previously. I can now eg do most of the Local Searches on the website.

 

 

I've slugged this post in Google for now to avoid too many casual inquisitive eyes.

 

That looks rather expensive if you need a lot of stuff.

 

(*) Discretion presumably means they have the discretion to charge me (under the General Power of Competence?), and there is nothing I can do about it  . Rather after "eligible" in "you are eligible to pay this fee / receive this Parking Ticket" etc.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Ferdinand

[ToughButterCup]

No.

But it's outrageous to charge for a Decision Notice. I mean realllllly, for a Decision Notice, reeeeaaaally?

 

Auf die Barrikaden Jungs! Aux armes les citoyens! Up the Revolution Citizens! Freedom for Tooting! 

[Jeremy Harris]

The guidance used to be extremely clear on this, but few seem to have seriously challenged some of these charges.  No public body is allowed to charge more for a service than it costs to provide that service, to a non-commercial entity.  Since the FoI Act, you can find out the costs of providing services, with a bit of painstaking effort.  Unless the LA can prove that it costs that much money to provide a copy of a document, then you can challenge the charge.

 

I did manage to do this around 5 years ago, when we were plot hunting.  There was a nearby plot where planning had been refused, and it was very clear from the planning officers report and the decision notice that there were two reasons for refusal, over-development of the site and the proposal being out of keeping with the nearby Grade I listed building.  Reading the file it was clear that the principle of development hadn't been ruled on at all, meaning that a proposal that overcame the two objections looked, in theory, to be acceptable (the plot is an infill plot, inside the development boundary).

 

I asked to have a very short telephone call with the planning officer, to ask a single question "Would a proposal that was in keeping with the Grade I listed building and that was not over development of the site, be considered or not?".  They wanted to charge me £90 to ask this single question, arguing that it constituted pre-application advice.  I argued that, as a resident in the parish, I had a right to ask such a question, as I was neither the applicant or the landowner.  The LA refused.

 

I submitted an FOI request, asking what the whole cost to the local authority of 15 minutes of a planning officers time cost, including salary and other employment costs and overheads.  It turned out that this cost was a bit under £10.  I then said that I would pay £10 for a short phone call with a planning officer, and unless they could prove to me that they incurred costs that were greater than this they had an obligation to allow this and not charge me any more.  They backed off, and actually let me speak to the planning officer without a charge at all!

Edited May 2, 2017 by JSHarris

[jack]

1 hour ago, JSHarris said:

I asked to have a very short telephone call with the planning officer, to ask a single question "Would a proposal that was in keeping with the Grade I listed building and that was not over development of the site, be considered or not?".  They wanted to charge me £90 to ask this single question, arguing that it constituted pre-application advice.  I argued that, as a resident in the parish, I had a right to ask such a question, as I was neither the applicant or the landowner.  The LA refused.

 

We had a similar experience when we turned up to our local planning office for an informal chat about the bungalow we were about to buy.  Apparently they give brief consultations for free, but the moment we said we were considering knocking down and rebuilding, they refused to say another word and demanded payment of whatever the fee was for a development meeting (because you're always a developer once you knock the house down apparently).  We eventually convinced them to give us 5 mins of their time since we were standing right there, but it was clear that this was grudging.

 

I must remember the trick above next time I want to talk to the planning department!

[Temp]

Looking at that table of charges I see it has an * against the £18 charge for electronic copies of a decision notice. The foot note says that this is for:

 

 "maximum 5no copies (single address only) and £3 for each additional copy."

 

Huhh????

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Might be worth checking the Open Government stuff, as I believe this places quite a lot of obligations on LAs to make information freely available. 

 

Failing that, make and FoI request for the documents.  They cannot charge for an FoI request unless the time taken to prepare the information and release it is excessive.

[Temp]

I'm wondering if the charge is specifically for someone to post or email you documents (eg access via their web site/portal is still free)?

 

I'm assuming you can also ask to see a file for free and perhaps photograph it? 

[Ferdinand]

I have a bit more information, having talked to our planners.

 

In our LPA everything from 2000 should be online, and if something is missing they will put it online at no charge (they say). The charges are for where they are required to do work involving officer time - examples are planning docs from pre-2000 and things which are not normally published, such as BC notices etc.

 

I am still not convinced, and it seems to be an ill thought out set of charges, since it can all probably be FOI'd or "Subject Access Request"-ed for personal information. When I have had any planning files over the last several years from my LA, their suggestion was to FOI it and it came as a huge PDF document in the email. A3 printers and 27" minotors are useful in these circs. I always assumed that was so Planning could charge the work to the FOI budget, or that they would be supplying an internally-chargeable service to the other team.

 

For our LA, Planning Files are still listed in the Publication Scheme (which defines information which can be FOI'd), and can therefore be obtained by the other route. I am not sure how this will develop.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

On 02/05/2017 at 21:29, Temp said:

I'm wondering if the charge is specifically for someone to post or email you documents (eg access via their web site/portal is still free)?

 

I'm assuming you can also ask to see a file for free and perhaps photograph it? 

 

They have never (in my experience) liked people taking photos, for 'copyright' or 'date protection' reasons. Though all things are possible with iPhones etc.

 

In my LA for some time they have been showing the public things on screen when you roll up to examine the file, or telling you to FOI the documents, then redacting them before sending them through.

 

Round here redaction-mania ("Data Protection Reasons") seems to be receding in one or two areas, so I assume someone in local-authority advice central (LGA?) had a fit a few years ago from which they are now recovering.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Ferdinand