Planning Permission

Debate between Lord Borwick and Baroness Williams of Trafford

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

Declaring my interests in the register, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, our reforms are driving up performance on deciding applications for major development. In spring 2015, 78% of major applications were decided on time, compared to 57% in summer 2012. We are taking steps to drive further improvement, including introducing a dispute resolution process for Section 106 agreements. The time between resolution to grant and full planning permission is not monitored.

[Lord Borwick]

I thank my noble friend for those figures, which show that the speed of processing applications is indeed accelerating. However, I am told that the number of applications that are still outstanding after one year is at present around 13% and growing, and these are the big schemes with lots of social housing in them. Can the Minister tell us of any plans to accelerate the big schemes?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I do not recognise the 13% figure cited by my noble friend, because we do not publish national statistics on the percentage of decisions outstanding after a year. We publish figures on the periods within which a decision has been made. For major developments, in the most recent quarter, 10% of applications took more than a year to decide, or were decided after the end of an agreed extended time period, as set out in the planning performance agreement or extension of time, which could be anything over 13 or 16 weeks.