Planning obligations: new guidance

Local authorities are being encouraged to use planning obligations to secure infrastructure improvements, contributions towards the local area and affordable housing as part of new developments under new Government guidance published recently.

The guidance is primarily aimed at local authorities and is designed to provide more certainty and a quicker route towards granting planning permission than can sometimes be the case.

It adopts the existing approach that planning obligations should be relevant, necessary, directly related to the proposed development, fairly and reasonably related to the proposed development and reasonable generally.

In summary, the guidance advises local authorities to:

• start negotiations with developers before the application is made
• provide a standard form of agreement at an early stage in the process
• make calculations for contributions easily available and transparent
• involve third parties (including independent experts) where appropriate
• set standards for the level of service an applicant should be able to expect
• think seriously about monitoring and enforcing planning obligations to ensure that these are delivered

When the guidance is adopted by local authorities, it may speed up negotiations on planning agreements and help all parties comply with strict government timetables for determining planning applications. However, it will still be necessary to consider whether planning obligations are necessary for each application. It will also still be necessary to tailor agreements carefully to large or complex developments.

The encouragement of contributions towards development precedes far more drastic changes to the planning system which will occur if the government decides to adopt a planning gain supplement in 2008.