Business and Planning Bill sets out detail of extensions to planning permissions and listed building consents

read time: 4 mins
01.07.20

Following on from my post last week regarding the automatic extension to planning permissions due to expire - the draft provisions (sections 17 - 19) of the Business and Planning Bill that implement that change have arrived.

Key points: 

a) conditions on full permissions requiring implementation between when the s17 of the Bill comes into force and 31 December 2020 (so they have not yet lapsed) are deemed to provide that implementation must be not later than 1 April 2021 instead.

b) conditions on full permissions requiring implementation between 23 March 2020 and the day s17 of the Bill comes into force (so they will have lapsed) also benefit from this extension provided that an 'additional environmental approval' is obtained from the LPA.

c) the LPA has 28 days to decide whether to grant such approvals. Applicants' hearts will sink at the need for this no doubt, but if the 28 period passes and the LPA has not decided, deemed approval applies. In brief, two matters must be satisfied- an 'EIA requirement' and a 'habitats requirement' and these are defined in s17 of the Bill. These act as safeguards and it should be relatively readily apparent whether they 'bite' or not, and most applicants will immediately know whether they need to at least consider them.

d) for outline permissions a very similar dual option procedure applies, and is included in s18 of the Bill. In addition, s18 also addresses conditions requiring submission of reserved matters applications, applying an extension so that they must be made not later than 21 April 2021. 

e) for listed building consents (s19 of the Bill), where granted subject to a condition requiring works to begin within the period 23 March 2020 to 31 December 2020, again a deemed extension applies pushing this out to not later than 1 April 2021.

Whilst not covered here, note that the Bill also includes new provisions, well covered in the planning and development press, regarding flexibility in planning appeals allowing Inspectors to use a mixture of procedures; and modifications to conditions which concern construction hours; and amendments to the licensing regime. 

The Bill will be having its second reading in the House of Lords on 6 July 2020, having gone through all House of Commons stages.

Link to related article: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/58-01/119/5801119.pdf

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