HC Deb 24 July 1991 vol 195 cc663-4W
Mrs. Roe

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table indicating the percentage of planning applications decided within eight weeks by each local planning authority.

Mr. Yeo

I have arranged for the required information to be placed in the Library.

Mrs. Roe

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will announce the arrangements for bringing into force the provisions of clause 10 of the Planning and Compensation Bill, enabling local planning authorities to grant certificates of lawful use or development.

Mr. Yeo

We have now considered the response to the consultation paper of 8 January about the proposed certificate of lawful use or development.

We intend to bring the provisions of clause 10 into force one year after the Planning and Compensation Bill receives Royal Assent. This will enable local planning authorities to prepare thoroughly for the introduction of the new system of lawful development certificates. They will also be able to consider possible enforcement action against currently unauthorised development which will become lawful when the new "immunity" rules, in clause 4 of the Bill, are simultaneously brought into force.

My right hon. Friend proposes to enable local planning authorities to charge a fee for their administration costs of processing and deciding lawful development certificate applications. He intends to prescribe a national fee scale, linked to the planning application fees for which the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) Regulations 1989—(SI 1989/193, as amended)—provide, as follows: (1) applications under new section 191 of the 1990 Act for existing use or development Fee payable: an equivalent amount to the planning application fee for the development to which the application under section 191 relates. (2) applications under new section 192 of the 1990 Act for proposed use or development Fee payable: 50 per cent. of the equivalent planning application fee for the use of land to which the application relates.

We propose to bring the other main enforcement provisions in part I of the Bill into force approximately four months after Royal Assent.