Anyone know what is going on with local planning departments atm?

[Alan Ambrose]

Mine (East Suffolk) is taking a year to do simple non-contentious single dwelling stuff atm. From their org chart, they seem to be fully staffed and I can't imagine a huge increased in demand for their services as there's so little building land available. They seem to be getting back responses from the various consultation bodies reasonably quickly and then just sitting on the applications. So much for ... the statutory determination period for validated planning applications, which local planning authorities should not exceed, is 8 weeks.

 

https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Planning_permission_-_how_long_does_it_take

 

Did I miss something? How are other local planning departments doing these days?

 

Alan

[Mr Punter]

East Suffolk seem to be taking about 3-4 months.  Probably typical.

[nod]

We’ve decided to make a few changes 

BC advised to make them and apply retrospectively Due to the time planners are taking 

 

[twice round the block]

Local Authorities....

Think there all still working from home

[Post and beam]

Working from home should speed things up if anything.  A year is seriously taking the p1ss

[DevilDamo]

What’s the reason for you not having Appealed as a result of non-determination? The Appeal would have been decided within that time frame.

[Kelvin]

17 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

From their org chart, they seem to be fully staffed and I can't imagine a huge increased in demand for their services as there's so little building land available.

 

 

 

The do a lot more than just building new stuff on land. Some planning departments seem to have fallen apart after Covid while others are back to normal. Our planning took 8 weeks and the building warrant 7 in Perth and Kinross. You can’t get them on the phone though so everything is via email but they were quite responsive. 

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> @Mr Punter - East Suffolk seem to be taking about 3-4 months.  Probably typical.

 

Can you actually see the planning delay stats somewhere or is that a single data point?

 

>>> @DevilDamo  - What’s the reason for you not having Appealed as a result of non-determination?

 

Well I'm looking at existing application delays with a view to 'planning my planning application'. I was just looking at my neighbour's application.

 

In my investigations I came across these (not very readable) stats:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-planning-application-statistics

 

Table P153 'district planning authorities performance - speed of non-major decisions' seems to be the most relevant:

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1125509/Table_P153.ods

 

I can see East Suffolk is 295th out of 329 i.e. in the bottom 10%. The others at the bottom are as below.

 

I also found out that planning departments can be in 'special measures' although I can't see a current list of those anywhere. I did find this 2020 list though:

 

https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1690460/authorities-danger-special-measures-designation-poor-appeal-records

 

Alan

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Alan Ambrose

[Temp]

In my area they claim to have a planning officer, conservation officer etc but they are part time shared with other councils. Previously they had two planning officers for just our area so workload to staff ratio has changed by factor of four.

[DevilDamo]

6 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Well I'm looking at existing application delays with a view to 'planning my planning application'. I was just looking at my neighbour's application.

So you haven’t even submitted your application yet?

[Mr Punter]

It looks like they determine 74% within 8 weeks.

 

If you submit an application you will find out if you are one of them.

[Papillon]

Isn’t east Suffolk one of the better ones? Surely the higher the % within 8 weeks the better? 
 

might be reading it wrong let me know!

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> Isn’t east Suffolk one of the better ones? Surely the higher the % within 8 weeks the better? 

 

As I said - I was just showing the bottom 10% of the table - there are 294 local authorities out of 329 that do better than East Suffolk. Follow the link above and you can see the whole shooting match.

 

>>> It looks like they determine 74% within 8 weeks.

 

Yeah it might look like that, and you might hope that the other 26% were getting dealt with in, say, 6 weeks. But that's not the case.

 

Does anybody know if there are some more granular stats around? For instance, I see https://www.planningportal.co.uk/ is something 'run by TerraQuest Solutions Limited and  Department for Levelling Up'. Presumably they should have some numbers?

 

Alan

[DevilDamo]

So you haven’t even submitted your application yet?

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> So you haven’t even submitted your application yet?

 

The thread is about ‘how do I find out what my local planning situation is like’ rather than a particular application - a subject presumably of interest to BH members.

 

@DevilDamo - Am I right in thinking you’re an ex-LA planner and/or planning consultant?

 

If so, can you give us some pointers on how we figure the local environment as clearly not all LAs are the same?

[Kelvin]

I’m not sure what you hope to achieve. The planning process is the planning process in which you need to operate within the area you make the application. It’ll take as long as it takes. There’s not much you can do to influence it other than making sure you follow their process to the letter and provide clear detailed information about your plans. Therefore the sooner you get the application in the quicker you’ll get the decision. Knowing in ever granular detail how long the process takes won’t make it happen any faster. 

[DevilDamo]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Am I right in thinking you’re an ex-LA planner and/or planning consultant?

 

If so, can you give us some pointers on how we figure the local environment as clearly not all LAs are the same?

Neither.

 

Submit an application and await the outcome.

[Alan Ambrose]

Well this is all very curious given that, in my experience, the BH forums are generally very helpful and people here spend a great deal of time and energy making their knowledge available in a very generous way.

 

The question, as stated, is obviously winding a few people up for reasons I can't quite figure out. Maybe the subject of planning itself just puts everyone in a bad mood...

 

I won't inflame further, but will post any info I find on the subject (if I find any) for other people to find later. That could be me when I've totally forgotten about it .

 

Thanks for everyone's responses though.

[Kelvin]

I doubt anyone is getting ‘wound up’. Let’s say you had the very granular detail you are looking for, what will you do with the information to help you plan your planning application? In my case I was told planning was taking a long time therefore it drove me to get everything in place as quickly as I could to get my planning application in as quickly as possible after we completed the land purchase. We still ended up with significant delays and ironically both planning and warrant were the quickest processes. The longest delay was the Structural Engineering which took 15 weeks in total. 

[DevilDamo]

19 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

The question, as stated, is obviously winding a few people up

Pardon? You’re asking to predict something that may or may not happen in the future. You won’t know the answers to your questions until you submit an application.

 

I’m with @Kelvin on this and cannot see how or why the information you are trying to seek is going to help you.