Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004

53 Fees and charges

(1) Section 303 (fees for planning applications, etc) of the principal Act is amended as follows.

(2) The following subsections are substituted for subsections (1) and (2)—

“(1) The appropriate authority may by regulations make provision for the payment of a charge or fee to a local planning authority in respect of—

(a) the performance by the local planning authority of any function they have;

(b) anything done by them which is calculated to facilitate or is conducive or incidental to the performance of any such function.

(2) The regulations may prescribe—

(a) the person by whom the charge or fee is payable;

(b) provision as to the calculation of the charge or fee (including the person by whom it is to be calculated);

(c) circumstances in which no charge or fee is to be paid;

(d) circumstances in which a charge or fee is to be transferred from one local planning authority to another.

(2A) The appropriate authority is—

(a) the Secretary of State in relation to England;

(b) the National Assembly for Wales in relation to Wales,

and in the case of regulations made by the National Assembly for Wales section 333(3) must be ignored.”

(3) In subsection (4) after the first “prescribed” there is inserted “charge or”.

(4) After subsection (5) there are inserted the following subsections—

“(5A) If the local planning authority calculate the amount of fees or charges in pursuance of provision made by regulations under subsection (1) the authority must secure that, taking one financial year with another, the income from the fees or charges does not exceed the cost of the performance of the function or doing of the thing (as the case may be).

(5B) A financial year is the period of 12 months beginning with 1 April.”

(5) Subsection (6) is omitted.