Changes to pre-commencement conditions in 2018
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a consultation on 30 January 2018 on the Draft Town and Country Planning (Pre-Commencement Conditions) Regulation 2018. These regulations will prohibit Local planning authorities from attaching pre-commencement conditions to planning permissions without the prior agreement of the applicant, or where they serve notice of the same effect on applicants they receive a substantive reply in return.
The objective of the new regulations is to prevent against Local planning authorities attaching onerous pre-commencement conditions that unnecessarily stall and frustrate the start of works on site whilst awaiting the discharge of such conditions. The discharge of conditions can take up to 8 weeks to determine by the Local planning authority, and in many cases are attached at the present time with little thought as to whether the timing of the submission of details is necessary before work starts on site, and are standardised in their design.
If the regulations are brought into effect this is likely to have a real beneficial effect of speeding up the start of developments on-site, provided that is, that the Local planning authorities pay due regard to the case of the applicant and their representatives, and amend their conditions accordingly.