With no wide public consultation, the council has introduced new “Invalid Application Charges” for planning applications. Under this policy, if a resident makes a minor technical error on their paperwork (such as a missing scale bar on a drawing), the council freezes the application and levies an administrative penalty—such as a £65 fee for standard householder projects, or up to £240 for larger developments.
What makes this predatory is that it functions as a “double-charge.” Homeowners are already forced to pay significantly increased national planning fees alongside a mandatory £75.83 service fee to the centralized online Planning Portal. Now, Bromley is taking advantage of a legal loophole under Section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003 to slice a second fee directly out of a resident’s planning refund if an application has to be withdrawn and corrected.
Local homeowning residents who want to carry out home improvements will feel that this policy is highly open to abuse.
There is a widespread perception from local homeowners and architects seeking permission to build simply extensions and loft conversions that Bromley Council already uses strict, pedantic tactics to unfairly refuse planning permissions.
This new administration fee introduces a clear financial incentive for the council to aggressively find minor faults and flag applications as “invalid” just to generate internal revenue from ordinary families attempting minor home improvements.
During a cost-of-living crisis, this policy treats honest applicant mistakes as an opportunity for cost-extraction and prices working-class residents out of changing their homes.
As a local resident and practising architect with a long term insight into the increasing regulations and fees imposed on tax paying home owners I am yet again astonished how local government are going to impose further fees without any consultation with their constituents.
I have seen how planning applications have been blankly refused after two months for minor issues that could have been easily addressed with a simple requests. This has led me to the believe that certain councils are intentionally looking to refusw planning application to increase their income. This pattern of finding any way possible to generate income has been implemented with car parking fines, green waste refuse collection and increasing council tax.
This is the economic imperative that dominates all of our institutions now, but when will enough ever be enough? Never! And this will continue to erode our trust, democracy and inventiveness.
I have seen how the Government, both local and central, is increasingly moving away from a consultative and representative entity to a dictatorial and punitive one.
Our institutions, together with our architecture, have become too regulatory and interfering, and are now increasingly impeding the ability for people to live their lives beyond the shackles of capitalism and bureaucracy.
Homeowners and architects
are directly impacted by these escalating costs and will now have to pass the risky business of validating planning applications onto planning consultants, which will further increase the costs of small home improvement projects.
It is exasperating! When will Britain halt the interference of bureaucrat institutions and return to an inventive and inspirational culture? Is this even possible anymore?
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