Dec 7 2006
Baroness Andrews, Lords Minister for Planning, today announced provisional payments worth £28.8m as part of the Planning Delivery Grant (PDG) allocation for next year.
The grant provides additional funding to enable regional planning bodies and local planning authorities (LPAs) across England to improve their planning resources and deliver sustainable communities. It is also helping to introduce the many changes that Government is bringing in as part of its planning reform programme. In all, £120m will be granted to support improvement in the delivery of planning services in 2006/07.
As highlighted in this week’s Barker Review of Planning, past PDG provision has supported the planning system in a number of ways. It has:
- helped raise the profile of planning;
- provided additional resources for both development management and plan making; and
- incentivised improvement in performance even as local authorities must cope with a rapidly increasing number of applications.
Today’s announcement covers the first tranche of awards for performance and is awarded on the basis of LPAs meeting development control targets on the speed of handling planning applications in the year ending June 2006. It also includes funding of £100,000 to the nine LAs participating in Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder projects to help tackle low demand.
Baroness Andrews said:
“The Planning Delivery Grant has become an important tool in supporting the improvement of services across planning. Local planning authorities must continue to build on these successes. In total, £605m will have been given to local authorities between 2003 and 2008 and Kate Barker’s review has acknowledged that this has been money well spent.
“In particular, I encourage every local authorities to make a real effort in the coming months to meet their applications targets. £50,000 will be available for each council that meets its targets on processing major, minor and other applications by the end of the financial year. Our continuing aim is to work alongside all LPAs to provide sustainable communities across the country.”
Following consultation earlier this year, Communities and Local Government is today publishing revised proposals for allocation criteria for the 07/08 grant and guidance for local authorities on self assessment forms. Further consultation is also being undertaken on the inclusion of proposals for minerals and waste indicators and joint working on planning documents.
In a separate move, Communities and Local Government today announced a series of interim measures to provide extra help for LPAs in preparing Local Development Frameworks (LDF). These come in response to feedback from individual LAs and also as a result of recommendations made in the Barker Review, which suggests LPAs are having some difficulty with the new system. These measures include:
- additional short term support for Government Offices by the Planning Inspectorate;
- the development of an advisory service for local authorities based on information contained in Local Development Schemes; and
- the publication of key reports on Spatial Plans in Practice to help identify good practice.
Baroness Andrews continued:
“The new LDFs provide a proactive and positive approach to planning and managing the building of sustainable communities. They bring together, in an integrated way, community members, infrastructure providers and the development industry to help shape the places in which we live as well as the provision of the homes, jobs and community facilities that we need.
“We are also looking to all LPAs to respond positively to the challenges of LDFs now that the initial period of learning is over. I expect LPAs to make final adjustments to their Local Development Schemes. Thereafter Government Offices will be treating them as the definitive programme management documents which will only be departed from in exceptional circumstances.”
The Government will be working with LPAs and the planning profession to see how the system can be further streamlined for the next round of LDFs once core strategies are in place.