Planning fee ongoing

Another letter to Caradon District Council concerning and incorrect charge for a planning application.

The Monitoring Officer,
Luxstowe House
Liskeard
Cornwall
PL14 3DZ

Re: Complaints to Planning Department dated 08 01 08 / 25 04 08 / 01 06 08 /
06 11 08 / 10 11 08 & 11 11 08

Ref: DH/SW/WEST & 07/01775/LUCP

Dear Mrs Diggens,

I have made a complaint regarding a fee paid for planning application 07/01775/LUCP. The original complaint was made in a letter dated 08 01 08.

Following a number of follow up letters a reply was finally received on 6th November 2008. I questioned this reply and and on 19th December 2008 I received a letter confirming the councils position.

I am not happy with the response and would like to appeal the decision. I would also like an explanation as to why so many of my letters went unanswered and why it took 10 months to reply to my original letter.

I request that you look at the evidence again including The Certificate Of Lawful Use application and correspondence with the planning department prior to the application.

In the reply from Mrs Walters dated 6th November 2008 it states,


“you [Mr Simon] are of the opinion you should have been charged £25.00 (being half the fee for the agricultural prior approval application)”.


This incorrect. In my original letter dated 08 01 08 I stated,


“I still believe that the fee paid is incorrect. It is my understanding that for a certificate of lawful development a fee half of the normal planning application fee is payable. A normal agricultural application fee would be £50, therefore in normal circumstances a fee of £25 would be payable for a certificate of lawful development covering development for the purpose of agriculture. It also states in the planning guidance notes received with the application form that no fee is payable if the application is for development that would normally be covered by permitted development rights but where these rights have been removed by direction of the local planning authority”.

To clarify the above, I am suggesting that the fee payable should be half the fee for a normal agricultural planning application (which is £50), not half the fee for an agricultural prior notification application (which is also £50).

To clarify further:

If I was seeking to build a pond for agricultural purposes on an area of land less than 5 Ha, the application fee would be £50, therefore it follows that the normal fee for an agricultural pond would be considered £50. Half the normal fee for a certificate of lawful use would then be £25.

Another possibility is that the construction of a pond on an area of land of more than 5 Ha is covered by permitted development rights with out the need for a prior notification application. No fee would normally be payable therefore it would follow that a certificate of lawful use, charged at half the normal fee would be free.

A third possibility is that no fee is payable due to the fact that a certificate of lawful use for the construction of the pond was only submitted due to a direction of the planning authority removing these rights.

The reply by Mrs Walters states that the correct application fee should be £675. In my letter dated 11th November 2008 I requested that it was clarified whether this would be the fee payable for future applications contesting the removal of permitted development rights. In the reply dated 19th December 2008 this was not clarified.

I believe that the logic applied in this case is flawed. I request that a review of planning application fees is undertaken and that the correct fee for a certificate of lawfulness contesting the removal of permitted development rights is made public.



Yours Sincerely


Mark Simon