Tag: eplanning

Scottish Planning Fees Set to Change 1 April 2022

Fees for planning applications set by the Scottish Government change on 1 April 2022 for almost all application types. This means everything submitted to us on or after 1 April 2022 will be affected including:

  • ‘full’ planning permission
  • planning permission in principle
  • certificates of lawfulness
  • advertisement consent

Amongst the changes, the standard ‘householder’ fee increases from £202 to £300, whilst the standard fee for the construction of one new house increases from £401 to £600.

Details of the changes including information on concessions are set out by The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 2022.

Making sure that you calculate your fee correctly will make the validation process quicker and will help avoid delays with your application.  

Once you know your correct fee, paying is also easy, and can be done whilst submitting your application using ePlanning.scot.  

Some other fees related to Planning & Building Standards are also changing on 1 April 2022, including;

Applying to do work to protected trees

Edinburgh has a significant number of protected trees with approximately 180 Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) in place (these include individual trees and groups of trees), and 50 conservation areas. Permission is required to do work to a tree protected by a TPO or a tree within a conservation area.

As a result, we receive large numbers of tree applications, with over 1000 applications submitted last year. To help us deal better with the volume and complexity of these cases we have made a number of improvements, including increasing resources, changing how we validate (check in) tree applications and updating our online information.

RESOURCES

In terms of the team, we have secured some additional resources on a temporary basis which will help us manage the large number of tree applications we are receiving.  We hope this will see continued improvement on the time we take to handle applications and reduce the backlog.

WHAT IS CHANGING?

All tree applications will now be validated by dedicated tree technicians who will review the content of submissions before allocating it to a tree officer.

This means that the tree officers will have all the information they require to assess the application. It will reduce the amount of time that is spent requesting further information so they can concentrate on assessing the applications and hopefully speed up the process.

Will be asking those who make applications for works to trees to:

  • Make sure they apply for the right consent and tick the right box on the ePlanning form i.e. conservation area or TPO.
  • Give the right address for where the tree is actually located (and not just the address of the client)
  • Provide photos of the tree/s and its context
  • Give a detailed description of the works based on BS3998:2010

Applications will no longer be validated unless they have all the information necessary for us to assess it.  We will require the information to be submitted within 14 days, otherwise the application will be returned to the applicant or agent undetermined.  Doing work to a protected tree without permission would be a criminal offence.

ONLINE GUIDANCE ON HOW TO APPLY FOR WORKS TO TREES

At the start of the year we renewed our Planning Trees webpages and updated our guidance on doing works to trees: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/privatelyownedtrees

We have also produced a ‘quick guide’ on applying for work to trees which sets out how to check for protected trees and has a summary of what is required as part of the ePlanning submission.  

CUSTOMER FORUM

We will continue to review the new process and in due course we will be holding a customer forum for agents who make tree applications to get their feedback.

In the meantime, thank you for your patience as we put these changes in place.

Planning and Building Standards portal – now back online

We're back

You may have already noticed that the planning and building standards portal is now back online.

The upgrade has resulted in a number of improvements for us in-house in how we handle planning and building warrant applications. The upgrade has also resulted in a number of improvements to the public portal, including:

  • Documents can be bulk downloaded
  • Draft comments will be retained after a time out
  • Comments can be spellchecked
  • Social media integration means you can easily share comments and applications via email or Twitter
  • Email addresses are checked to ensure they are valid before registering for the portal
  • Uncommon email domains are now supported – for example, .house
  • You will be able to track notifications of map searches
  • New links to ePlanning and eBuildingStandards are included for the submission of applications

In terms of how customers submit planning and building warrants, improvements include:

  • A ‘Client to Pay’ option for ePlanning and eBuildingstandards means agents can submit the application form without payment, and their client will receive an email with the eDevelopment reference number and telephone details for them to make the payment
  • For Building Standards, drawing numbers, revision numbers and document descriptions will be uploaded into our system as input by the agent/customer

Planning applications effected by the downtime will have additional time added to allow for public comments. For users who wish to check the expiry date for public comments on an application, this can be viewed in the “Important Dates” tab.

Whilst much of the upgrade was about providing greater stability in our systems and improving how we manage planning and building standards applications, we hope that you find the ‘user experience’ has been greatly improved in the process.

Planning and Building Standards systems downtime: 1–7 November

As a follow up to our previous blog post, we can confirm that the Planning and Building Standards systems upgrade will commence on Thursday 1 November with completion expected on Wednesday 7 November.

As a reminder, the upgrade will impact on the delivery of the service and the planning and building standards portal will be unavailable during this time. The weekly list of planning applications will not be issued and you will be unable to view and comment on applications.

The Development Management Sub Committee scheduled for 7 November has been cancelled. All outstanding items of business will be dealt with at subsequent meetings. The Local Review Body meeting will continue as planned on 14 November.

When the systems are back online, the weekly list of planning applications will include newly submitted applications and decisions. Decisions will not be issued during the period of downtime.

Additional time will be given to comment on applications affected by the downtime.

The internal systems we use to manage applications will also be unavailable which means staff will have no access to planning and building standards records.

The upgrade will have no effect on the national eDevelopment Portal and planning and building warrant applications can continue to be submitted in this way. However, we would ask you not to submit new applications during the downtime as they will not be registered which could create a backlog that leads to delays in processing.

You can keep up to date by following us on Twitter @planningedin or subscribing to the Blog.

Planning and Building Standards systems upgrade

An upgrade of the Planning and Buildings Standards systems is planned for early  November this year, with an expected downtime of one full week. The upgrade will result in a number of improvements, such as making it easier to view documents, comment on planning applications and share information using social media.

The process to upgrade our systems will impact on the delivery of the service and the planning and building standards portal will be unavailable during this time.

The weekly list of planning applications will not be issued and you will be unable to view and comment on applications.  When our systems are back online, the weekly list of planning applications will include newly submitted applications. Additional time will be given to comment on applications affected by the downtime.

The internal systems we use to manage applications will also be unavailable which means staff will have no access to planning and building standards records.

Planning and building warrant applications can continue to be made online through eDevelopment. However, we would encourage applicants and agents not to submit applications during this period of downtime because new applications will not be able to be registered.

Further information will be issued in the coming weeks on the exact dates of the downtime. You can keep up to date by following us on Twitter @planningedin or subscribing to the blog.