New clause 4 - Effect of revision or revocation of
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
10:45 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
I understand that in the earlier proceedings of the Committee, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) tabled an amendment in respect of clause 39 and recommended that developers who had started work permitted by a local development order should be allowed to complete that work, notwithstanding the subsequent revocation of the order. The provision for an LDO allows local planning authorities to expand on the permitted development rights set nationally in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 by introducing local permitted development rights. For example, a local authority with a policy of reducing the number of offices in a town centre and encouraging more shops might choose to make such convergence the subject of an LDO, meaning that a separate planning application would not be required. The object of the provision for a local planning authority is to reduce the burden of dealing with a number of applications of the type to which permission is almost always given.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Spelthorne for that recommendation, and as my hon. Friend the previous Minister said we are sympathetic to its aims. It is important for developers to have the certainty that if they have started but not completed work that they were permitted to carry out at the time at which they stopped, they will be able to complete it even if the permitted development rights are subsequently removed. New clause 4 will therefore allow the Secretary of State to include in a development order, and local planning authorities to include in a local development order, a provision enabling the completion of development for which planning permission has been granted by the order and which
has been started but not completed before that planning permission is withdrawn.
Amendment No. 32 is related and it provides that compensation provisions do not apply where a development order includes a provision allowing the completion of work that has started before permission is withdrawn. The purpose of that is to make it clear that a developer who can complete development that was previously permitted cannot also claim compensation in relation to the withdrawal of the permission. As a result, a developer can complete his or her development or apply for planning permission, but if it is refused he or she will not be entitled to compensation.
Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 31 are a consequence of new clause 4, which will introduce a proposed new section 61D to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. There is already a new section 61D, so references to it need to be changed to 61E. Amendments Nos. 6 and 31 will change the number in the references to the proposed new section that will be introduced by clause 40 from 61D to 61E. Amendment No. 5 makes it clear that the proposed new section that will be introduced by clause 40 should be inserted in the 1990 Act after new section 61D, not 61C as stated in the Bill.