RE: Re: Is the 'application date' also the 'validation date'? - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

I am interested in what is behind the question (why it matters in this instance?). I am really interested in it from an improvement angle - the period between an application being received and being valid tells us a lot about how well planning works in different councils. Most councils seem to aspire to receive and validate on the same day, and when this doesn't happen it is usually an indicator of one or a combination of: - poor or under resourced 'front end' processes, - applications received are of poor quality (which can be the council's as much as the applicant's fault) - poor / inconsistent / non existent pre application service A delay is seen as a bad thing because we are all still pre-occupied with speed - the interesting thing for me is not so much the time delay between receipt and validation, but what the delay costs the council in terms of the additional resources required to make an application valid. We are currently dong some work with councls to try and put a '£' on this cost. Personally, I see less problem (and £ cost associated) with valid applications sitting in an in tray for a couple of days before they are worked on than invalid applications taking weeks of correspondence and phone calls to get right.

On the assumption that this is about the start date, as our decision notices only have the decision date, it should be the date a valid application was received, regardless of whether it took a day or more to go through a validation process. Pretty sure that its written down in some regulation somewhere because of the way we count how we do in the speed criteria. Re Martins point, agree entirely that we commit lots of resources to the validation process, and with our only around 65% of our applications being right (valid) first time, its something we are looking at. Don't disagree with the basic 3 factors Martin says are the cause, but finding the right answer - a combination of carrot and stick ?? is tricky.

Thanks for your responses - very useful. The decision notice is, of course, the planning permission and has to be 'plain on its face' in terms of what is permitted . Allied to this is the strong desirability of listing approved drawings by condition in the decision (this really should be a regulatory requirement) – this adds clarity to what is approved and better enables future minor amendment applications. However, the possibility exists that some of the approved drawings will have been submitted when the application was first 'made' - ie received by the Council, which may be before it was validated. Therefore, it would be appropriate to state the received date in preference to or as well as the validation date if it is different (it's merely one more on the template). I regard of service improvement, I'm all for LPA's getting a better handle on what is happening during the validation process, putting a price on it, and seeing how it can be improved. But, this has to be a warts and all analysis: LPA's need to be prepared to be self-critical on every step of their processes, as well as being able to truly justify what is requested for validation purposes. For many this really means re-adopting their list of application requirements with triggers that are less of a catch-all, particular for major developments. It also means being more circumspect when adopting new SPD’s, many of which these days create new report requirements. There is a general feeling out there in the profession that the validation regulations have generated more heat than light: they’ve attached even more importance to the process and not the outcome (even though that wasn’t the intent). There should be more reliance placed on the idea that determining an application may reveal a need for reports, drawings or other information that weren’t submitted with the application. This would naturally encourage more critical thinking about what is required on the merits of each application. For their part LPA’s have have always had the option of refusing an application on the basis of insufficient information, which applicants can appeal against (it’s almost scandalous that there’s no right of appeal against a validation requirement as things stand). Some applications might cost more money to process because of this, but I suspect that more money would be saved by the reduced administration time in booking an application in, reduced consultation paperwork, and less wrangling over the whole issue per se. This may mean delays in getting a decision, but that’s the applicant’s risk: engage in detailed pre-app and shorten the application process, or don’t and risk a lengthy application determination and possible refusal. This, of course, highlights the need for reliable and complete pre-application feedback on application requirements, which in turn depends on a fuller pre-application submission in the first place. The stick is and always has been the risk of refusal. Pre-app should be the carrot being dangled in front of applicants. The spectre of a an application hanging in limbo because of a list of validation requirements that can never be scheme-specific is a failure of the system.