Audit Scotland are recommending a new scale of fees for Scottish Planning Applications and whilst this is not accepted it may be set to be adopted. Some of the fee hikes are excessive with some application set to rise by a staggering 527 percent.
Applications for residential, retail and energy-generating development could jump from their capped level of £15,950 to a collosal £100,000. On a smaller scale alterations for extensions to homes could increase almost 100% from £160 to £300 an application and that's to say nothing of the paper advertisement costs currently set at around £100 depending on the Authority.
No longer will we see free subsequent applications made within 12months of an approval. It is suggested that we will need to pay up to 50% of the original fee for an amendment or for a re-run of a refused application.
It is suggested that across Scotland it cost the planning authorities an additional £20m above an beyond the fees generated for planning applications. Quite a gap to fill in but are all authorities as efficient as they can be? Is Planning Policy in Scotland getting so complex that it's costing all of us precious time and money to get the approvals. Do we really need these additional fees in such a time of austerity in the Construction Industry?
All said we do not doubt that there is justification in increasing the Scottish Planning System fees as they are still less than that of our neighbours in England however is this a sign of things to come? As Architects and an evolving multi disciplined practice we are seeing a vast increase in the information being requested at both planning and building warrant stage in order to obtain approvals. This time/cost issue will ultimately require to be absorbed by the Client in the shorter term as design professionals simply cannot sustain the low profit levels which they have done over the last 4 years since the recession started. The fear however must be that as the cost of planning and probably warrant applications increase then Clients are likely to squeeze either design fees or construction costs even further just to make the business plan work. Where do we go from here? Probably nowhere fast!
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