Developers could incur major costs for minor breaches of planning consent under new proposals designed to prevent abuse of the planning system, warns Wedlake Bell, the commercial law firm.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) has launched a consultation on plans to allow local planning authorities to issue Temporary Stop Notices (TSNs) to stop work for up to 28 days if they think there is a planning breach.

Currently local authorities can only impose relatively light fines for breaches of the conditions of planning consent or embark on the lengthy process of serving an enforcement notice, which has a right of appeal, during which time work can continue.

“While Temporary Stop Notices could be a very useful tool to tackle the worst cases, there is a serious concern that they will also be the measure of choice for fairly minor offences,” said Susan Hawker, planning law specialist at Wedlake Bell.

Source

Construction Manager

Postscript

The consultation ends on 26 January 2005. Responses should be sent to Susan Peart at the ODPM