As Guy says this is the consequence of the prior approval legislation brought in by the Government afew years back, which has in effect created a 'two-tier' planning system for residential development - if it can be done under prior approval then the applicants don't have to tick that many boxes and the LPA is relatively powerless, where if the applicant can't utilise prior approval rights then they have to tick so many boxes. Of course I'm involved in both full applications and prior approval applications on behalf of clients, but I don't personally like the "two-tier" system that prior approval has created whereby developers can convert office space into flats which don't even satisfy the minimum floorspace standards and there's nothing an LPA can do about it. As for 'cynical' planning applications, whilst some of my clients do have this mythical Christmas deadline they want us to work to, in reality submitting such applications before Christmas achieves nothing and is self-defeating. The reason being that if applications are submitted just before Christmas invariably they are not processed/validated until after Christmas, and often Councils will give third parties additional time to submit their representations.  Furthermore, as this thread proves, immediately someone will accuse the applicant of deliberately timing the submission to catch people unaware, which only usually generates more objections and more suspicion. I've never had a client come to me and expressly say that they want to submit an application just before Christmas in order for it to go under the radar.  If they did I'd strongly advise them against doing so because it simply won't go under the radar as they hoped.  But nonetheless every year I still end up submitting applications just before Christmas (this year I submitted 1 on 21/12 and another on 24/12) but the timing is down to clients having agreements in place with vendors that application will be submitted before 31/12, and consultants like myself only having afew weeks to get the whole submission together. Years back January used to be a quiet month in my industry, you'd get applications in before Christmas and then sit back in January, nowadays I end up submitting just as many applications in January as I do in December.

Entire Thread

Topic	Date Posted	Posted By
Cynical planning applications	07/01/19 18:58:00	Gary Padbury
Re:Cynical planning applications	07/01/19 19:06:00	Guy Lambert
Re:Re:Cynical planning applications	08/01/19 10:08:00	Vanessa Smith
Re:Re:Re:Cynical planning applications	08/01/19 10:36:00	Adam Beamish
Re:Re:Re:Re:Cynical planning applications	08/01/19 11:41:00	Vanessa Smith
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cynical planning applications	08/01/19 12:24:00	Adam Beamish
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cynical planning applications	08/01/19 13:41:00	Vanessa Smith
Reply	09/01/19 12:21:00	BrentfordTW8 Editor
Re:Reply	09/01/19 14:25:00	Adam Beamish
Re:Hounslow Barracks	09/01/19 16:20:00	Vanessa Smith
Re:Re:Reply	09/01/19 16:45:00	Gary Padbury
Re:Re:Re:Reply	09/01/19 17:23:00	Adam Beamish

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