Notification of Initiation of Development, Notice of Completion of Development and On-site Notices
21. Section 6 of the 2006 Act inserts new sections 27A, 27B and 27C into the 1997 Act. Section 27A requires anyone intending to carry out development for which they have been given permission to inform the planning authority before starting development of the date on which they intend to start and must provide further information as required by regulations. (Notice of initiation of development or NID)
22. S.27A (2) requires that, when granting permission, the planning authority is to 'direct the attention of the applicant' to the requirement that a NID has to be submitted. We expect that this would be done through the use of a standard condition, with the planning authority able to consider enforcement action if a notice was not submitted.
23. Section 27B requires that, once development is completed, a completion notice must be supplied to the planning authority. (Notice of completion of development or NCD)
24. Section 27C requires that when carrying out development of a prescribed class a notice must be displayed on site containing prescribed information. Where a development falls within the categories defined in regulations, primary legislation requires that the developer must display a notice from the date development starts and for the duration of the development until it is completed. In addition to setting out in regulations the class of development and the information to be included in the notice, regulations may also prescribe the form of the notice and where it is to be displayed. (Display of notice while development is carried out)
25. Draft regulations relating to the notification of initiation of development and to the display of on-site notices are set out in The Town and Country Planning (Notification and Display) (Scotland) Regulations 2007. A copy is attached at annex B.
26. If a breach is identified and addressed as it occurs, rather than at a later point, the easier it will be to correct. Generally it will also be cheaper for the developer to correct. As planning permission may be granted years before development actually commences, the NID and the NCD are intended to provide planning authorities with information as to which developments are currently active within their area, enabling them to allocate resources to enforcement monitoring more effectively. Some authorities already require developers to inform them when they start development but this is not legally binding.
27. In order to further inform decisions as to allocation of resources, we are drafting regulations requiring certain additional information to be included in the NID. This would comprise the developers' name and address and details of any recent planning enforcement action taken against the developer. We propose that this information would be required to cover a period of three years prior to the date planning permission was granted and extending up to the date the NID was submitted (Regulation 3 (1)). The information would be supplied purely for the purpose of informing the planning authority as to the developer's 'track record'.
28. Regulation 3 (2) provides that the developer would not need to record any enforcement action which was subject to an appeal or had been withdrawn (either following a successful appeal or for some other reason).
Q4. Do you have any views on the proposed level of information requested in the NID or any suggestions for other information, for example declaring that any suspensive conditions had been met, might be useful? |
Q5. Are you content with the proposed time limits for recording relevant enforcement action? |
29. The legislation regarding the display of notices (s.27C) will require that for certain types of development, the developer will need to display a notice from the time development begins until it is completed. Regulations are required to specify what information is to be included and how it is to be displayed.
30. The purpose of these on-site notices is to raise public awareness of development taking place in their area. The notice would therefore provide some basic information as to the nature of the development, name and address of the developer. It would also include information such as the planning application reference number which would help interested parties find further information, such as information on any conditions that may apply, and contact details for the relevant planning authority enquiry and enforcement section. An example of the form of the notice including the prescribed information is set out in Schedule 1 of the Regulations.
Q6. Bearing in mind that the purpose of the notice is to make people aware of the development and direct them to the appropriate contacts for further information, are you content with the level of information to be included? |
31. With regard to the class of development for which notices would be required, we propose (Regulation 4 (1)) that this would include those developments identified as major, national and/or bad neighbour developments. We do not consider that notices would be needed for small scale developments, nor would it be feasible to expect planning authorities to effectively monitor display of notices if they were required to be displayed for every development. In our view, the neighbour notification procedures currently in place would be sufficient for informing neighbours as to the existence of small scale developments.
Q7. Are you content with the proposed categories of development for which notices would be required to be displayed, and if not, why not? |
32. In order to be of any value in informing the public, the notices have to be placed appropriately. The Regulations therefore prescribe (Regulation 4 (3)) that notices shall be displayed in a prominent place, readily visible to the public and printed on durable material.
Q8. Do you consider this sufficient, or would you like to suggest other criteria for the siting, display, size, etc, of these notices. |