Councils are calling for the freedom to set their own planning fees, after research showed it cost them £450m over the past three years to process applications.
New analysis from the Local Government Association (LGA) revealed that nationally-set planning fees have forced councils to cover a third of the cost of all planning applications since 2012, diverting money away from other services.
The LGA and the British Property Federation are calling on the Government to review planning fees as part of the upcoming Spending Review, warning that the cost of planning applications will pass £1bn by 2020.
‘It is unacceptable for communities to keep being forced to spend hundreds of millions each year to cover a third of the cost of all planning applications,’ said Cllr Peter Box, LGA housing spokesman.
‘The Spending Review should allow local authorities to recover the actual cost of applications and end such a needless waste of taxpayers' money when developers are willing to pay more.
’Locally-set fees would also allow councils to protect residents from hiked fees while developers and housebuilders could pay more to improve the ability of councils to speed up the planning process and maintain high-quality planning decisions.’
Councils process an average of 467,000 planning applications every year.
