Planning conditions and enforcement

As a development management officer, you will know that planning conditions may be attached to a full planning consent and that if these conditions are not met then a developer may be taken to court.

It might also be useful for you to know that conditions used to secure provision for and long-term maintenance and management of those aspects of a development that are required to ensure compliance with planning policy, can include decentralised and renewable or low carbon energy (DRLC) technologies, as stated in the Climate Change PPS. You must take a reasonable view of the extent and nature of the future commitments that developers should be capable of and expected to make. Remember that it’s not necessary to use planning conditions to control aspects of a development that can be addressed by Building Regulations.

Also, planning obligations, or section 106 agreements, are usually used where a financial payment is required from a developer. The section 106 agreement is legally binding between you, as the local authority, and the developer. These financial agreements may involve the payment of a “commuted” sum, that is, where a developer may pay a lump sum upfront, rather than making an ongoing payment for maintenance of a particular feature of the development. This can be applied, for example, to cover the costs to the local authority of maintaining new local roads required for the development.

The forthcoming Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) also offers opportunities to fund community scale infrastructure. It’s expected that the levy will be chargeable on most types of new development and will be based on simple formulae which relate the cost of the charge to the size and character of the development. CIL will be a valuable top-up for local communities who wish to see additional facilities in their area such as roads, public transport, open space or health centres, but importantly in this context, it might also be used to provide funding for DRLC.

Further information on the use of planning conditions and obligations click here

There are a range of planning policy requirements which you may seek to secure through planning conditions and obligations. The Policy Objectives page sets out a number of these which your authority may have already adopted or be in the process of considering.