Planning Fees to rise on 1 April 2025
A draft statutory instrument has been laid before parliament that will increase a range of planning application fees in England on 1 April 2025.
In summary, the fee increases proposed are:
Prior Approvals
The fee for prior approval applications that don’t involve building operations is increasing from £120 to £240;
The 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 GPDO) is increasing from £125 per dwellinghouse to £250 per dwellinghouse;
Discharge of conditions
The fee for householder applications is increasing from £43 to £86; and
The fee for applications relating to any other development is increasing from £145 to £298.
This fee is for per application, not per condition, so there is still the option to discharge multiple conditions under a single application and therefore pay a single fee.
Also, the fee for the submission of a Biodiversity Gain Plan is increasing from £145 to £298.
Section 73 applications
A three-tier structure for section 73 (variation of condition) applications is introduced:
£86 for householder applications;
£586 for non-major development; and
£2,000 for major development
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.
Other changes
There are also some ‘corrections’ to the fees for two miscellaneous fee categories in the scale of fees table:
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 from £30,680 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 from £624 to £5,077.
Transitional provisions
The new fees will not apply to applications made before the commencement date.
Indexation
Regulation 18A of the Fees Regs made application fees subject to indexation from 1 April 2025. The draft order delays the fee increase date until 1 April 2026.
Conclusion
It is no coincidence that the draft fees amendment follows the publication of the local authority planning capacity and skills survey last week. The survey shows an urgent need for additional resources for local planning authorities.
Additional resources to help planning authorities is certainly a positive step. However, as planning fees are not officially ring-fenced, and given the fact that many Council departments are in need of extra cash, there can be no guarantee that the additional fees will go towards improving planning services.
The planning fees will not (certainly in the short term) necessarily help with the skills gap, as it takes time for planners to gain experience and expertise, and retaining good planners will likely continue to be a challenge for local authorities.