Improving planning departments by increasing application fees and reducing cuts could help tackle the UK’s housing crisis, according to the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

Ahead of the July budget, the RTPI has written to Chancellor George Osborne highlighting the fact planning departments have been hit harder than any other by austerity cuts.

Fees, cuts and pre-charging

Janet Askew, President of the RTPI says increasing the capacity of local planning teams is vital if the Chancellor is to meet his programme of both economic growth and housing delivery.

She says planning and planners play a massive part in the solutions to many of the challenges facing the UK.

The RTPI is initially calling for a short-term rise in planning fees in line with inflation. It also eyes long-term solutions like joined-up working between local authorities and developers through pre-application agreements.

In the letter, the RTPI calls for all local authorities to employ experienced and skilled professional planning officers to deliver the best advice possible and the right planning decisions quickly.

What’s in the letter?

Key proposals in the letter include:

• A short-term, nationwide increase in planning application fees to match inflation

• The end of local authority cuts - the RTPI warns they will affect the delivery of new homes

• Discussions over localised setting of planning fees

• Planning services to be funded by pre-application charges and planning performance agreements

• Investment in services to help boost planning’s contribution to reducing the deficit

The letter says that as planning is a ‘fee-generating’ service, it is often seen as a safe bet when it comes to cuts.

But the RTPI points out fees for planning applications only cover around 38% of the costs of planning activities.

It also says that many of its members are reporting a significant reduction in the ability of their planning departments to deliver good planning outcomes in terms of speed and quality of decision.

Conrad Payne, partner in national development and planning at Strutt & Parker added: “Planning is still the major issue that is impeding the delivery of new residential development and a ‘back to basics’ approach is required to remedy some of the obstacles we face.

"There must be more investment made into the often under-resourced planning departments in local authorities both in terms of the number of planners employed and the training they receive.

"The local members that work on the planning committees also need to be educated to better understand the process and the relationships between local authorities and their county counterparts need to be better as they are often at loggerheads, which achieves very little.

"Resolving these issues is the real key to delivering more homes.”