Your Home Made Perfect

[Q165]

Why was there such long delays, When was the 8 week rule introduced? Personally I think 8 weeks is a heck of a long time for some 'minors'

I got different cooperation from my neighbouring offices. Fortunately my local planners were pretty good and I had good relationships with them. The next two were hard work and if ever I ventured into West Kent my heart sank.

Last night's episode was very different Budget was only £15k to sort out a conservatory. Cynic in me asked how much of such a small budget the 2 top architects would have demanded for their services?

923, it is quite some time since I worked in development control. When I started we were working to a government statutory instrument published in 1963. Amongst other things this set down an 8 week period for the determination of all applications (statutory time limit). If an application was not determined within this period (unless a time extension had been agreed) an applicant could appeal against non determination and the application would be taken out of the hands of the authority. I saw this take place particularly by big applicants (many house builders) who knew it would be refused so it was a waste of their time waiting until this actually happened. But in the majority of cases this was a waste of time as the application would have been determined anyway before the appeal procedure has been finalised. The delay in determining applications was to a large degree the result of how the decision was actually taken. Significant applications would have to go before a committee of elected members. The authority to determine smaller scale developments would be given to an elected member. In both cases the system could be quite slow. It was in the 90's (I think) that the 8 week figure changed in emphasis and became the target time in which applications had to be determined. Much authority to do this was delegated to individual officers with only major applications going before a committee. I did not like this arrangement. Today I think that matters have changed again with there being an 8 week period for most proposals and 13 and 16 weeks for major proposals. Sorry if that is as clear as mud.