Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring offsite infrastructure investment to be secured through Grampian conditions for property developments with respect to drainage and sewerage prior to commencement.
Defra has not yet made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring infrastructure investment to be secured through Grampian conditions.
Conditions requiring works on land that is not controlled by the applicant, or that requires the consent or authorisation of another person or body often fail the tests of reasonableness and enforceability. It may be possible to achieve a similar result using a condition worded in a negative form (a Grampian condition) i.e. prohibiting development authorised by the planning permission or other aspects linked to the planning permission until a specified action has been taken. Such conditions should not be used where there are no prospects at all of the action in question being performed within the time-limit imposed by the permission.
Local Planning Authorities are responsible for attaching conditions to planning applications so it would be for them to determine whether a Grampian condition would be appropriate on a case by case basis.