More than half of MPs (61%) think planning fees should increase, a British Property Federation poll has found.
Among those that agreed with a fee rise, some 47% said they should increase with a stronger guarantee on planning performance.
The results of the ComRes poll reveal cross-party support for an increase in fees, with 65% of Labour and 61% of Conservative MPs supporting the idea.
It comes after the BPF and GL Hearn’s 2015 annual planning survey found that 55% of local planning authorities perceived under-resourcing to be a significant challenge, and that 65% of applicants would be happy to pay more to shorten waiting times.
The government has taken some steps to address this problem. As part of the Housing and Planning Bill, now at report stage in the House of Lords, a pilot to allow local authorities to outsource planning application processing has been proposed.
Proposals have also been put forward to reward well-performing local authorities by allowing them to increase planning fees by an inflationary amount.
However, the BPF has warned that the measures do not go far enough in plugging the skills gap.
BPF chief executive Melanie Leech said: “The public and private sectors have both been very clear about the need for more resourcing in local authority planning departments, and
we now know that there is political understanding of this issue as well.
“We are supportive of the small steps that government is taking to address this, but are not holding out hope for any great impact. Some local authority planning departments are simply short-staffed, putting those who remain under enormous strain.”
She added: “Outsourcing the processing of planning applications is likely to relieve this burden to an extent, but it is not going to solve the chronic shortage of skills and resource that is the true problem.”
Click here to read Melanie Leech’s comment on the planning skills shortage
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