New clause 27 - Qualified third party right of appeal
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
No, I said those in neighbouring local authorities. If people were directly affected by a development, they could appeal wherever they lived, and they might be on the boundary. The new clause would also give neighbouring local authorities the power to appeal. There have been some problems where one local authority would not have approved an application, but it happened to be right on a boundary and the other planning authority chose to approve it. There is no right of appeal in those situations.
It is hoped that such a system does not mean that the planning system will grind to a halt, but that standards in planning authorities will rise because they will become accountable both for their approvals and refusals. At the moment, they are accountable for refusals but not approvals. New clause 27 sets out five categories in which a third-party right of appeal would apply; it would not apply to all approvals. It would apply where there is an approval despite a departure from the approved plan; I realise that such a case would be sent to the inspector, but we are providing another route.
That right would also apply to applications in which local authorities have an interest, to major applications, which we have referred to earlier, to applications that require an environmental impact assessment and to applications recommended for refusal by officers—that is, where refusal is recommended, the planning committee subsequently approves, and perhaps the Secretary of State is not minded to call the application in because it is relatively minor. The new clause would give the right of appeal in those circumstances.