Hounslow Council To Increase Fees For Some Planning Services
Pre-Application meetings and householder Prior Approvals to see new charges
Hounslow Council is set to increase fees for some of its planning services from next year as well as immediately implement the new national fee of £96 for Householder Prior Approval.
The government introduced charges for Householder Prior Approvals on 19th August set at £96 per submission. While the current fee for a planning application for an extension or works to a private home is £206, in some cases prior approval by a local authority planning official is needed before planning can be applied for, and this new charge is for that purpose.
The fees for existing Pre-Application meetings, which will increase by 20 per cent, will be introduced next April.
The Council already charges for Pre-Applications meetings, which generally apply to developers, but says it needs both to update its charges and introduce new charges to reflect the increasing workload on the team. It also wants to engage more senior officer at an earlier level.
The Council will also increase the standard Pre-Application fee by 10%. This is based on a review of the hours spent on each meeting by officers and preparation beforehand, it says.
The Council says; "The significant growth that the borough is likely to experience in the
coming years needs to be framed within a robust planning pre-application service to ensure quality is instilled form the outset. The scale of the growth is will require more input from a number of officers and an approach to development which requires input of more senior members of the Council."
The new charges include introducing a new Pre-Application category for site visits for minor pre-application meetings; A new meeting category for a meeting with Head of Development Management; A new meeting category for a meeting with Assistant Director of Planning and Development and a new category for ‘super’ PPAs over 150 units/10,000sq ft.
The latter are the schemes that have the greatest impact on local environments and local communities. Their scale requires input from officers at all levels, from administration support to the Executive Director, according to the Council.
No consultation has been carried out as the Council says this would be a voluntary process.
The charges are likely to be approved by a Single Cabinet member decision next week unless 'called in' by a councillor for further discussion.
October 8, 2019