Readers of this blog and/or of Future Perfect? will recall that in April we flagged up the recent Knockhall Road decision in which the Secretary of State had found against a "tariff" approach by the local planning authority on the basis that it failed the requirements of Circular 5/05. The May newsletter from the Planning Inspectorate draws this important decision to the attention of all appellants and local planning authorities.
In my view this is an important step and will make Inspectors alive to the argument that simply because there is in place a tariff or "standard charge" policy in any given area, this does not mean it should be applied to all developments regardless of their actual impact.
We have been raising this as an issue for some time but, in our experience,local planning authorities take the view that if they have an adopted standard charge policy, they can apply this to all developments without considering the actual impact of the development, and appellants often decide there is no point in challenging this. We may now see a move away from acceptance of these policies - especially in the current economic climate.
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