The new legislation impacts on how decisions are made, what the decision notice will contain, how long permissions will last and how appeals will be heard.
Decision Notice
Decision Notices will contain a fuller range of information and will be accompanied by a note advising on rights of appeal or review. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WILL BE DIFFERENT FOR DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF APPLICATION.
The Council will expect all submitted plans to be drawn to recognised metric scales (e.g. 1:100, 1:50, etc) and be accurately labelled, as plans relevant to the decision will be specified in the decision notice for enforcement and monitoring purposes.
Duration of Planning Permission
For applications for planning permission this will in future be three years (as opposed to five years) although the Council has powers to decide on a different duration.
A planning permission in principle will expire if the development is not started within two years from the grant of the last approval of matters specified in conditions. Again the Council can apply different time periods.
Rights of Appeal/Review
In respect of decisions made after 3 August 2009 there will be a three month period within which the decision may be appealed or reviewed (previously six months).
Schemes of Delegation
The Council will be operating within a statutory Scheme of Delegation from 03 August onwards. This scheme specifies the categories of "major" and "local" scale development which can be decided by officers on the Council's behalf and which categories must go to Committee for a decision. The Scheme replaces the Council's existing operational scheme.
Those applications decided within the Scheme of Delegation can, if the applicant so wishes, be reviewed by the Council's Planning Review Committee. The Council's statutorily approved Scheme of Delegation will be made available in the near future.
The Act provides that Committee can decide to determine an application that could otherwise be delegated under its statutory approved Scheme of Delegation. Where this happens a statement of the reasons for the decision to determine the application at Committee must be made and copied to the applicant.