Under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (“the 1990 Act”), a person applying for planning permission, or for any consent, agreement or approval required by a condition or limitation attached to a planning permission, may appeal to the Welsh Ministers if the relevant local planning authority do not determine the application within the prescribed period.

The period is prescribed in article 22(2) of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (Wales) Order 2012. The period is eight weeks unless an application is amended before the authority make a determination. If an application is amended before the authority make a determination, the period is either four weeks from the date the amendment is received by the authority or twelve weeks from the date the original application was received, whichever is the longer.

Regulation 57(2) of the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Wales) Regulations 2016 (“the 2016 Regulations”) increases the period of eight weeks in article 22(2)(a) to sixteen weeks where an application relates to development which requires an environmental impact assessment (“EIA”).

Regulation 2 of these Regulations substitutes regulation 57(2) of the 2016 Regulations. The period prescribed in article 22(2) after which an applicant can appeal if an application which requires an EIA is amended but not determined, becomes four weeks from the date the amendment is received by the authority or twenty weeks from the date the original application which requires an EIA was received, whichever is the longer.

Regulation 3 contains a transitional provision.

No impact, or minimal impact, on the public, private, or voluntary sectors is foreseen. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment.