Funding your planning performance agreement

Despite recent nationally imposed increases, your planning application fee (or pre-app fee) is not sufficient to cover the additional costs of providing our PPA service. An additional fee is needed to ensure that the service can be properly resourced.

The PPA fees set out below are based on the scale and assumed complexity of your application or pre-application.

There is a fixed PPA fee for small and minor scale developments. Medium to large scale developments, however, can vary hugely in terms of their complexity and officer demand. Therefore an initial ‘inception fee’ is payable at the outset, followed by an hourly officer rate. This hourly rate applies to all officers involved in the application process including administration and validation support as well as the case officer themselves, management support and internal consultee input.

Planning performance agreement fees
PPA category Additional PPA fee
Large scale major (100+ homes) £8,000 inception fee + hourly rate
Medium scale major (50 to 99 homes) £6,000 inception fee + hourly rate
Small scale major (10 to 49 homes) £6,000 total
Minor scale (5 to 9 homes) £3,000 total
Minor scale (1 to 4 homes) £2,000 total
Works to listed buildings £350 total

Please bear in mind that the PPA fee above is payable in addition to the statutory application fee set by planning regulations. In the case of pre-app PPAs the fee is in addition to the pre-app fee.

The cost of any external consultants is expected to be met in full by the applicant. However, we will not instruct consultants until you have first agreed to their instruction and approved the quote in writing.

Tthe following hourly rates will apply to medium and large-scale Planning Performance Agreements (in addition to the stated inception fee):

Hourly rates for medium and large scale PPAs
Officer Total hourly rate
Management or head of service £112
Principal planning officer (or same grade) £96
Senior planning officer or consultee (or same grade) £86
Business support (or same grade) £73

The PPA fee is payable upfront at, or soon after, the validation of your application or pre-app submission. Where an additional hourly rate applies, the payment arrangements for this will be detailed in the PPA itself. For example, this could include monthly cost ceilings. We will invoice you on a monthly basis unless agreed otherwise.