Hugo Swire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hugo Swire on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will assess the merits of requiring developers who need retrospective planning permission to refund the costs incurred by the planning authority.

Gavin Barwell

The enforcement of planning control is a statutory function of local authorities for which they need to budget and the costs of which are not generally recoverable.

The primary purpose of a retrospective planning application is to give those who have made a genuine mistake the opportunity to rectify the matter. Introducing additional charges would penalise those people unfairly and might deter them from submitting applications.

We believe this remains the right approach and have no plans to amend it at this time.