The New National Park took over from 1 April 2011 as the planning authority which will include planning permissions, planning policies and enforcement, minerals and waste.
It is entering into agreements with the 15 local planning authorities which would include all planning authorities in East Sussex whereby they will probably continue to decide 98% of the applications. The SDNPA will determine significant applications.
Significant applications will be 10 dwellings, 1000 sq meters of commercial floor space or sites of 0.5 hectares or more unless certain factors apply which means that they will be treated as minor applications. The factors are:
Any residential schemes over 10 dwellings that are proposed within existing towns and are considered to have less significance to the National Park will be decided by the local authorities. Similarly commercial schemes of 1000 to 2999 sq metres floor space within existing commercial centres within towns and some small settlements which are considered to have less significance will be again decided by the local authority.
Some minor development will be considered by the SDNPA if it is considered to be significant. These will include the following:-
- 3 of more dwellings on the edge of a small village or settlement;
- Tourism, leisure and visitor accommodation schemes;
- Individual energy schemes outside existing settlements;
- Smaller scale infrastructure projects outside existing settlements;
- Proposals to alter the operation of some minerals and waste facilities;
- Telecoms communications proposals with visual impact on the SDNPA;
- Proposals for lighting outside existing settlements;
- Smaller scale development which may have acumulative adverse impact on the SDNPA.
If planning applications are identified as significant they will go straight to the SDNPA. However the SDNPA also has powers to recover any applications that are being looked at by the local planning authority and decide it themselves. However it has been made very clear they will not be recovered just because there is a lot of local opposition and a big lobby.
In some significant planning applications the SDNPA link officer may be involved in pre-application discussions.
Enforcement
Local authorities will continue to carry out enforcement and SDNPA’s role is mainly advisory. Similarly with Section 106 Agreements the LPAs will continue to undertake these and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).
Appeals
Appeals will continue to be handled by the local planning authority. If the SDNPA makes a decision which is not accepted then the SDNPA will handle the appeal.
Planning Policy
Current local planning policies continue to apply but joint core strategy work is in discussion with the local planning authorities. An early SPD is going to be promoted to review the inherited saved local plan policies and AONB policies.
Link Officers:
Jim Redwood, South Downs National Park
Ben Linscott, Planning Inspectorate
