Planning departments across the country are ‘struggling to cope’ due to lack of funding, according to a new survey.

Many local authorities take over 6 months to make decisions on major new planning applications, the British Property Federation (BPF) survey found.

Both developers and local authorities say the decisions take so long as planning departments lack the required resources.

Significant challenges

Lack of resources is a significant challenge for 55% of all local authorities, with half saying the planning system is in a worse state than it was 5 years ago.

When asked for ways to speed up the process, developers called for higher planning fees, which they believe would reduce waiting times and improve the performance of planning departments.

Three quarters of applicants are unhappy with how long it takes to make a decision, up from 71% last year. To help speed things up, 65% of applicants would be happy to pay.

Failing to hit targets

On average, it takes 32 weeks for a decision on a major planning application in London, Manchester and Bristol.

The current government target is for these decisions to be made within 13 weeks.

In London, the number of major applications determined dropped by more than a quarter (26%).

BPF Chief Executive Melanie Leech says planning departments are clearly struggling as a result of public sector cuts.

She warns that an ineffective planning system can hamper regeneration and development.

Action needs to be taken, she says, to improve planning if the government want to meet the housing challenge and develop commercial buildings.

She suggests that turning to the private sector to help speed up decisions could be one solution and urges the government to discuss this option with the property industry.

Conrad Payne, partner in the national development and planning team at Strutt & Parker said: “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 development.”