‘Significant’ fall in Harrogate district planning applications leads to £320,000 shortfall

Councillors met this week to discuss a quarter three financial report that provides a summary on how different departments are performing in line with the overall budget for 2022/23.

Harrogate Borough Council as the planning authority in the district and has the final say over developments from a kitchen extension to schemes with hundreds of homes built by national housebuilders.

When a planning application is submitted the council asks for a fee.

For an outline planning application where the site is bigger than 2.5 hectares, the fee is £11,432 plus an additional £138 for every 0.1 hectare.

For a single house extension, the fee is £206.

The council also offers a pre-application service where anyone can get advice on the likelihood of a proposal receiving planning permission.

Fees range from £90 for advice on an extension to £3,000 for developments with more than 50 homes.

But after a spike in applications during the Covid pandemic, the council says there has been a slowdown in the number of both large-scale and smaller applications.

It is anticipating a shortfall of £270,000 in planning application income and £50,000 in pre-planning application income.

The cost of building materials has also sky-rocketed in the last two years and the report says the council expects the number of smaller applications submitted to remain lower than expected as the national cost-of living crisis impacts on household spending.

The trend in the Harrogate district is in line with the national picture, where planning application submissions have dropped by an average of 15 per cent over the last year.