Partner Article

Three year extension to planning permission to help construction industry

The government is relaxing their rules on planning permission, giving local authorities the power to give developers six years to start building.

The usual three-year permission has been doubled to give developers who can’t fund new developments more time, in the hope that when the economy recovers they will be able to continue their projects.

In his first speech as housing minister, John Healey announced the three-year extension. He said: “I’m announcing the power for local authorities to extend the time limits for existing planning permissions.

“This will help to make sure that more homes, offices and factories get built at a time when investing in new developments is difficult and when access to funding is hard.”

Ian Baggett, managing director of Adderstone Group, a Newcastle-based property development company, said: “I am not sure what effect the changes will have on our future projects, to be honest. We aren’t planning too much at present in any event!

“The best thing the government could do to help the property sector, and so the construction industry, would be to free up the planning system and encourage or promote development rather than seek to impose further controls.”

Harvey Emms, Director of Strategic Housing, Planning and Transport at Newcastle City Council, said: “Authorities have always had the flexibility to review timescales for the granting of planning permission. Indeed we have done this recently with schemes where it can be proven that build out will not be completed in the short term.

“The direction is a positive one, however we need to guard against landbanking issues and speculative planning applications and try to ensure development has a reasonable prospect of going ahead.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .