LGA submission to MHCLG’s consultation on reforms to planning fees

Key Messages

Ensuring local planning authorities have the resources they need to administer the planning system is critical; currently, nine out of ten planning departments report difficulties with recruitment, and almost all (97%) report significant planning skills gaps.

The key messages in this response argue for:

• Cost recovery: Planning fees must allow for 100% full cost recovery, not the proposed 90% default.
• Local variation: The LGA strongly supports the accompanying local fee variation model, provided it is uncapped and allows local authorities to recover their actual costs. The Government should provide standardised national templates and new burdens funding to support implementation.
• Large scheme reforms: The LGA strongly advocates for the removal of all maximum fee caps for large multi-phase developments and reserved matters applications, stressing that arbitrary caps are no longer appropriate in a cost recovery system.
• Charging to match costs: Major Section 73 applications (recovering only 57% of actual costs) require an additional fee band or higher premium. The fee for discharging conditions should be charged per condition rather than per application.
• Specialist fees: A separate, significantly higher fee is essential to cover specialist consultancy costs for applications requiring Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), the approval of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) plans or for listed buildings and heritage sites.
• Discretionary charging: Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) and discretionary charging remain vital for ensuring developers requiring bespoke services fund them directly.

This submission draws upon up-to-date evidence from local authority planners. In August to September 2025, the LGA Planning Advisory Service (PAS) sent an online survey to heads of planning or equivalent at local planning authorities (LPAs) in England. The purpose of the survey was to gather intelligence on the extent to which the fees for planning applications set out in the national fee schedule reflect the full costs of processing and deciding those applications, to identify where the biggest cost recovery challenges lie, and to gather LPAs’ views on the potential for some councils setting their own localised fees in future. A total of 147 responded – a response rate of 45 per cent. The published results provide key data to support question responses.

Wider issues affecting reforms to planning fees

One consideration sitting alongside this consultation and any course of action the Government takes must be the pressures of local government reorganisation and pressures on councils to manage this process and the limitations it poses.  Taking advantage of any changes, such as to planning fees, will be difficult when planning teams are under extreme resource constraint forced to decide whether to work on a planning fee schedule based on costs for an organisation that will soon cease to exist. 

Another is the rapidly expanded and accelerated demands on plan-making, to be delivered nationwide within 30-months. This raises issues of funding, skills and workforce to manage the job effectively, efficiently and on time. Plan-making funding is often not considered in planning fees which are used to fund development management. Funding for plan-making and shared national tools, resources, and workforce investment beyond that already set out, such as Pathways to Planning, are needed. Development management has faced a smaller squeeze on budgets that plan-making since 2010.

Consultation Questions 

Question 1: Do you support the proposed National Default Fee Schedule, set at 90% of full estimate cost? Yes / No / Unsure 

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Unsure / Conditional Support. While the LGA welcomes the proposed uplift as a necessary and immediate boost to local planning authority resourcing, we firmly maintain that planning fees should ultimately allow for 100% full cost recovery. Setting the national default at 90% deliberately bakes in a funding shortfall that council taxpayers must continue to subsidise, which is unsustainable given the severe financial constraints facing local government. A lack of funding is one reason 25% of planners left the public sector between 2013 and 2020, representing a severe "brain drain". Nearly 60% of councils currently experience difficulties recruiting planners, relying on outsourcing and the use of agency staff.

However, we strongly support the accompanying provisions in the Planning and Infrastructure Act that will empower local authorities to set their own planning fees to recover their full, actual costs through the local variation model. Local authorities are best placed to make decisions about funding their own planning departments. We would caution the Government against using the Secretary of State's intervention powers to unnecessarily restrict councils from setting local fees that achieve genuine full cost recovery.

Question 2: Are there any proposed fees in the National Default Fee Schedule that you consider to be unrepresentative of 90% of estimated full cost levels for LPAs (either too low or too high)? 

Yes / No / Unsure 

If yes, please specify which application categories and provide evidence to support your view, including what you believe the fee should be.

Response: Yes. National averages often fail to account for the disproportionate amount of officer time and resources required for increasingly complex sites. Applications such as for listed buildings or heritage sites can face significant additional costs. Those that involve extensive environmental mitigations, such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) approvals, nutrient and water neutrality assessments, or complex flood risk models, place heavy financial demands on local authorities.

Councils face acute shortages of technical specialists, including ecologists and flood experts, forcing many to rely on expensive external consultants. Furthermore, major applications where developers repeatedly seek to renegotiate affordable housing obligations on viability grounds require significant legal and specialist input that is rarely covered by standard fee calculations. The fees for these complex applications are likely to fall significantly short of the true cost of assessment.

There is also the challenge of calculating and charging fees at the point of submission of planning documents for schemes that will go on for a number of years.

Question 3: Do you support the proposed changes to the fee structures for outline, full and reserved matters applications for residential and non-residential development as set out in the proposed National Default Fee Schedule?

Yes / No / Unsure

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Yes, with caveats. The LGA supports efforts to simplify the fee structure, remove complex baselines, and align bandings with new development categories, as this will improve consistency and reduce the administrative burden on validation and planning teams.

However, any structural changes must reflect the cost realities faced by councils. The PAS survey demonstrates that outline applications for major development currently cover an estimated 64% of actual costs incurred. Almost nine in ten councils (88%) consider them underpriced, and nearly a third (32%) rank them as a top three priority for fee review. To properly address this, we echo the calls from survey respondents to eliminate all maximum fee caps, allowing fees to scale in proportion to the project size so that the true cost of assessment is met. 

Furthermore, redefining site thresholds must be accompanied by a fundamental review of the 13-week statutory timescales for determining applications, which is increasingly indefensible given the volume of considerations involved in modern planning applications.

Question 4: What further changes, if any, do you think should be made to the structure of fees for outline, full and reserved matters applications?

In your response, you may wish to comment on:

• whether a more simplified banding structure would be preferable to increments per unit or per area
• how fees could better reflect varying site characteristics or levels of complexity
• whether the current approach to mixed use development fees should be simplified
• how fees should operate for large multi‑phase developments, including whether it remains appropriate to have maximum fee levels or caps for reserved matters applications
• whether an additional band or higher fee should apply to applications requiring EIA

Please provide evidence where possible.

Response: To ensure local planning authorities (LPAs) are adequately resourced, we propose the following regarding the structure of these fees:

• A more simplified banding structure: The LGA broadly supports moving towards a simplified banding structure (such as fixed fees for set ranges of dwellings) rather than the current complex increments per unit or per area. A simplified system provides greater predictability for applicants and significantly reduces the administrative burden on council validation and planning teams. However, any new banding structure must be carefully developed (or reviewed) with local government to ensure it does not inadvertently reduce overall fee income and still allows LPAs to achieve 100% full cost recovery.
• Reflecting varying site characteristics and complexity: The current fee structure fails to adequately reflect the vast differences in the level of assessment work required for contrasting sites. High-density brownfield regeneration has consistently proven to be complex, lengthy, and expensive to assess. Furthermore, sites requiring extensive environmental mitigations, such as addressing nutrient and water neutrality, place massive technical burdens on councils. The fee structure must be adapted to allow councils to recover the true, higher costs of assessing these highly complex sites.
• Simplifying mixed-use development fees: The current approach to calculating fees for mixed-use developments can be very complicated, particularly where multiple fee categories interact. The LGA supports simplifying these calculations to make the system more transparent. However, this simplification must accurately reflect that assessing applications with both residential and commercial elements inherently requires scrutinising multiple distinct impacts (such as transport, noise, and commercial viability), and the resulting fee must fully cover the cost of this dual assessment.
• Large multi-phase developments and maximum fee caps: We strongly advocate for the removal of maximum fee caps for large, multi-phase developments and reserved matters applications. The current caps force LPAs to process later phases at a severe financial loss. The PAS survey provides stark evidence of this shortfall: Outline Applications (major) currently cover only an estimated 64% of actual costs incurred, with 88% of councils considering them underpriced, while Reserved Matters applications cover only 71% of costs. In a system moving towards genuine cost recovery, arbitrary maximum caps are no longer appropriate; the fee structure should allow fees to scale indefinitely with project size.
• Additional band or higher fee for EIA development: The LGA strongly supports introducing an additional fee band or a significantly higher premium for applications requiring Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA). The chronic lack of in-house capacity (72% of councils report skills gaps in ecology and biodiversity) forces councils to rely on expensive external consultants to assess EIA developments. A dedicated, significantly higher fee is absolutely necessary to ensure councils can recover these substantial external specialist costs without local taxpayers subsidising the developer's application.
• The aggregate cost of minor applications: While major sites require high specialist input, the fee structure for full applications must also acknowledge the massive financial drain of high-volume minor applications. The PAS survey reveals that householder applications are the fourth highest priority for fee review across all councils (prioritised by 23% of respondents). Because of the sheer volume of these applications, even a small difference between the fee and the assessment cost results in a considerable financial loss for LPAs across the totality of applications. A thorough review of minor application bands is therefore fully justified alongside changes to major applications.Question 5: Do you support the proposed changes to the fee structures for applications for agricultural development as set out in the proposed National Default Fee Schedule?

Yes / No / Unsure

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Yes. The LGA supports rationalising the agricultural fee structure to bring it into closer alignment with other non-residential development. The current bespoke calculation methods are overly complex and fail to reflect the reality that agricultural applications often require detailed, resource-intensive assessments regarding landscape, visual effects, access, and drainage. Simplifying this process will improve transparency for applicants and ensure a more proportionate recovery of costs for local authorities.

Question 6: Do you support the proposal that PiP applications should attract a flat fee for 2 bands? (Up to 9 dwellings, and 10 to 49 dwellings)

• PiP applications for developments of up to 9 dwellings
• PiP applications for developments of 10 to 49 dwellings

Yes / No / Unsure

If no, what alternative approach would you suggest and why? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: No. While the LGA supports a flat fee structure for Permission in Principle (PiP) applications for minor developments (up to 9 dwellings), we fundamentally oppose the creation of a fee band for medium developments (10 to 49 dwellings). The LGA has consistently expressed deep concern over the Government's proposals to extend the PiP route to medium sites. Expanding PiP to sites of up to 49 homes removes the need for full planning scrutiny at the initial principle stage for much larger developments, severely undermining design quality, infrastructure planning, and local democratic accountability. Therefore, a fee band for medium development PiP applications should not be introduced, as the route itself should not be expanded.

Question 7: Do you agree with the proposed fee level for PiP applications?

a) developments of up to 9 dwellings - £825?

Yes / No / Unsure

If no, what do you consider to be an appropriate fee? Please provide evidence to support your view.

b) developments of 10 to 49 dwellings - £3,150?

Yes / No / Unsure

If no, what do you consider to be an appropriate fee? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: No. As stated in Question 6, we entirely oppose the introduction of a £3,150 fee for medium developments, as this application route should not exist for sites of that scale. Regarding the £825 fee for developments of up to 9 dwellings, we reiterate our position that all fees should be set to achieve 100% full cost recovery, rather than the 90% default proposed by the Government.

Question 8: Do you think the three-band fee structure currently used for section 73 applications remains appropriate?

Yes / No / Unsure

If no, what changes would you propose and why? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: No. The current three-band structure fails to capture the immense workload generated by major section 73 applications. Local authorities continually report that developers use section 73 applications to reopen fundamental issues of viability, often reducing their obligations to provide affordable housing and critical infrastructure. Processing these applications requires significant legal and specialist input from councils to scrutinise site-specific viability assessments. We strongly advocate for an additional fee band or a higher premium for large-scale, complex major schemes, or for applications that specifically seek to renegotiate Section 106 affordable housing contributions.

The PAS survey confirms that major section 73 applications are the number one most underpriced application type in the planning system. 92% of surveyed councils consider it underpriced, estimating that current fees cover a mere 57% of the actual costs incurred by LPAs (the lowest recovery rate of any category). Furthermore, 39% of councils identified major Section 73 applications as their absolute top priority for fee review. The current three-band structure completely fails to capture the immense workload generated by major schemes, where developers frequently use Section 73 applications to reopen fundamental issues of viability and design. An additional fee band or a significantly higher premium for major developments is essential to close this funding gap.

Question 9: Should section 73 and section 73B applications be charged using the same fee structure?

Yes / No / Unsure

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Yes. We support fee parity to simplify the system. However, Section 73B applications that allow for material changes to the description of the development will likely involve significant reassessment of design, layout, and mitigation measures. The fee must accurately reflect this high level of resource-intensive analytical work.

Question 10: Do you think the fee for discharging conditions should be charged per condition rather than per application?

Yes / No / Unsure

If yes, what do you consider to be an appropriate fee per condition? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: Yes. Charging per condition is a much fairer and more proportionate reflection of the work involved. Currently, discharging a highly complex condition, such as detailed sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) or transport modelling, commands the same fee as a simple compliance condition. Charging per condition ensures that developers who submit large batches of complex conditions simultaneously pay a fee that genuinely covers the local planning authority's assessment time. The PAS survey found that discharge of conditions was tied as the most underpriced application type in the entire schedule, with 92% of councils stating it is underpriced and estimating it recovers only 62% of actual costs. Furthermore, 35% of councils prioritised it as a top area for immediate review. Crucially, when asked for schedule improvements, respondents proactively suggested that these applications "should be charged per condition".

Question 11: Should applications for the approval of biodiversity gain plans be subject to a separate fee to reflect the specific work involved?

Yes / No / Unsure

If yes, what do you consider to be an appropriate fee level? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: Yes. Assessing Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) plans requires highly specialised ecological expertise. The LGA has repeatedly highlighted the acute shortage of in-house ecologists within local planning authorities, which forces many councils to rely on expensive external consultants to assess these plans. A separate, significantly higher fee for BNG plan approval is absolutely essential to ensure councils can recover these specific specialist costs.

Question 12: Do you have an alternative suggestion on how the fee structure for discharge of conditions could be improved?

As has set out in answers to questions 2 and 10 above, improvements to the fee structure for discharge of conditions should include scaling according to the number and nature of the conditions. Councils must also have flexibility on the fee structure for discharge of conditions for major and complex developments to reflect the costs involved.

Question 13: Do you support the proposal to apply a flat fee of £310 for all other existing prior approval applications that are currently free of charge?

Yes / No / Unsure 

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Yes. The LGA strongly supports applying fees to all prior approval applications to recover the administrative and assessment costs placed on local authorities. However, we must reiterate our broader, fundamental opposition to the continued use of Permitted Development Rights (PDR). Bypassing the full planning application process for office-to-residential conversions has resulted in the loss of over 29,000 desperately needed affordable homes since 2013 according to the latest data and often delivers sub-standard housing in unsuitable locations. While a fee is necessary to process the prior approvals that exist, the LGA’s longstanding position is that these rights should be urgently revoked.

Question 14: Do you agree with the proposed fee for CAAD applications of £964?

Yes/No/Unsure

If no, what do you consider to be an appropriate fee? Please provide evidence to support your view.

Response: Unsure. The LGA supports the principle of increasing the fee for Certificates of Appropriate Alternative Development (CAADs) to reflect the complex policy interpretation and formal reasoning required. However, we can only support this specific figure if robust evidence demonstrates that £964 genuinely covers the full cost of the specialist officer time required to process these applications.

Question 15: Do you support the introduction of a new national default fee for section 106A applications?

Yes/No/Unsure

If yes, what would represent an appropriate structure and fee(s)? Please provide evidence to support your view.

If you do not support this proposal, please explain why.

Response: Yes. The process of modifying or discharging planning obligations under s106A involves complex legal work and frequently relates to developers seeking to reduce affordable housing commitments. The LGA strongly agrees that a national default fee should be introduced to cover the administrative processing of these applications, provided that local authorities retain the ability to fully recover their external legal and viability consultancy costs from the applicant alongside the base fee. The importance of local flexibility to recover these costs will be highlighted by the recent MHCLG and GLA London emergency housing measures. This is expected to lead to an increase in viability reviews and variations to s106A and additional work for councils they will need fees to fund. 

Question 16: Are there any other existing fee categories not mentioned above that you believe would benefit from restructuring?

Yes / No / Unsure

If yes, please specify which categories and explain how you think they should be improved.

Response: Yes. When councils were asked what else needs to be added to the fee schedule, the PAS survey revealed that by far the most frequent suggestion was to introduce fees for listed building consent applications. While free applications have historically been used to prevent unauthorised works, a fee is now absolutely necessary to ensure councils can secure and retain the specialist heritage resources required to assess them.

The second most common suggestion was the introduction of fees for Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) and tree works. These applications generate a significant amount of administrative and specialist workload for councils, and at least a minimal fee to recover administrative expenses is highly appropriate. We strongly urge the Government to introduce appropriate fee structures for these categories.

Question 17: Do you agree with our working proposal that the planning fee surcharge (for statutory consultees) should be in the region of 10% of the national default fee?

Yes / No / Unsure

Please explain your reasoning.

Response: Conditional Support. The LGA recognises that chronic under-resourcing within statutory consultees (such as the Environment Agency and Natural England) is a significant bottleneck that causes massive delays for local planning authorities. However, the LGA has clearly stated that any planning fee surcharge must be transparently ring-fenced for two specific purposes: first, to improve consultee service speed and quality; and second, to build local planning authority technical capacity (such as training and recruitment in ecology, flood, and heritage expertise). The surcharge must not simply disappear into central budgets without addressing the skills gaps at the local level. Furthermore, local authorities must not be left to absorb the administrative cost of collecting and distributing this surcharge on behalf of the Government.

Question 18: Do you have any comments on how local fee setting will operate?

Response: The LGA strongly supports the principle of local fee setting as a means to achieve genuine, 100% cost recovery. However, the PAS survey reveals deep anxieties among councils about the mechanics of setting these local fees. 84% of councils cited "the resources required to establish evidence on costs and time spent" to set and justify fees as their biggest anticipated challenge. Furthermore, 74% are concerned about "inconsistencies resulting from variations in fees between councils".

To ensure the success of this policy, we urgently request that the Government provides standardised national templates for calculating and evidencing costs, alongside specific "new burdens" funding to support the heavy administrative burden placed on LPAs to establish these local fee schedules and recognition of the challenges councils and their planning teams are under due to local government reorganisation, radical reforms of the NPPF and new Spatial Development Strategies. 

Provided an LPA has used a robust evidence base to calculate its costs, we firmly object to the proposed powers for the Secretary of State to arbitrarily intervene in locally set fees.

Question 19: Do you think local fee variations should be capped? If so, what level would be appropriate - 15%, 25% of the national default fee, or another figure?

• yes - 15%
• yes - 25%
• yes - other (please specify)
• no
• unsure

Please explain your reasoning

Response: No. Local fee variations should be uncapped. The fundamental purpose of local fee variation is to enable local planning authorities to recover their actual costs. Imposing an arbitrary cap of 15% or 25% directly undermines this policy objective and forces local taxpayers to continue subsidising developer applications in areas with higher staffing, technical, or accommodation costs. As long as the local authority can evidence that the fee does not exceed cost recovery, no cap should be applied.

Question 20: In the context of localised planning fees, what are your views on the future role of PPAs, pre-application advice and other discretionary charging regimes? 

Please provide any suggestions, experiences or evidence to support your view.

Response: Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) and pre-application advice will remain vital tools. Even with a localised planning fee that achieves cost recovery for the statutory determination process, large-scale and highly complex strategic developments require bespoke timetabling, extensive collaborative working, and dedicated project management that falls outside standard application processing. Discretionary charging ensures that developers who require this enhanced or bespoke service can fund it directly, rather than drawing resources away from the council's core statutory planning duties.

Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) and pre-application advice will remain vital tools, and the PAS survey provides stark evidence of how reliant councils currently are on this income to maintain their services. Currently, 97% of councils charge for pre-application advice, bringing in an average of £162,300 per council (and up to £1.2 million). Furthermore, 79% of councils use local PPAs, bringing in an average of £265,600 per council, increasing to an average of £723,800 for London Boroughs.

Unsurprisingly, nearly a quarter of councils (23%) expressed high concern about the potential negative effect that localised statutory fees might have on their discretionary fee income. Even with a localised planning fee that achieves cost recovery for the statutory determination process, discretionary charging ensures that developers who require enhanced, bespoke project management can fund it directly. Furthermore, for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs), councils currently only recover an estimated 64% of their costs via PPAs, highlighting that robust cost recovery mechanisms must be protected and improved across all planning pathways, rather than restricted.

Question 21: Do you have any views on how the proposals in this consultation might affect you, the group or business you represent, or others – particularly those with protected characteristics?

If so, please explain who might be affected and how.

Is there anything that could be done to mitigate any impact identified?

Response: A properly funded planning system is essential for delivering the homes and infrastructure that communities need, which directly impacts groups with protected characteristics. Chronic underfunding of local planning authorities leads to delays in delivering affordable housing, specialist housing for older people, and accessible/adaptable homes (such as those built to the M4(2) standard). By empowering councils to set fees that fully recover their costs, planning departments can be better resourced to secure high-quality, accessible development and social infrastructure that benefits vulnerable and disadvantaged groups.