I'd be grateful for any views on the interpretation of the final sentence of Paragraph: 003 (Reference ID: 23b-003-20140306) of Planning Practice Guidance relating to planning obligations as underlined below.
Supplementary planning documents should not be used to add unnecessarily to the financial burdens on development and should not be used to set rates or charges which have not been established through development plan policy.
The highlighted part seems additional to the initial wording of the sentence which is consistent with NPPF paragraph 153 and if taken literally appears to severely restrict the scope of supplementary planning documents. I'm unsure whether this is just a clumsily worded mistake in translating Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 regulation 8(3) together with regulation 5 and 6, with the intention of ensuring set rates and charges in SPDs do not conflict with requirements identified within development plan policy or introduce new requirements relating to the development and use of land which could only be undertaken through a Local Plan. In this respect, the interpretation of my authority is that such regulations do not preclude SPDs from including details of rates or charges where the specific development requirement has been established within a development plan / local plan policy which has been subject to examination but where no specific financial values are referenced. This is provided that such charges specifically reflect the requirements subject to economic viability evidence that have been tested at examination. To date as part of our ongoing Examination in Public, the Inspector has not taken issue with this interpretation and the deferral of detail to guidance within an SPD provided sufficient requirement hooks are in Local Plan policy.
The only reason I can see for an alternative literal interpretation of the guidance (rather than it being just clumsily worded) is that a rate or charge included within an SPD will not have been examined. This could mean that economic viability circumstances differ from the context within which a Local Plan policy was examined. However this is balanced by the fact that any rate or charge specified within a Local Plan would reflect that same out of date evidence and would be significantly more difficult to keep up to date in comparison with guidance within an SPD.
Welcome any thoughts, advice or experience of encountering this issue, as the interpretation of this paragraph appears critical to Authorities which are not in the position to progress CIL and instead will need to rely upon an appropriate, transparent and legally compliant approach to planning obligations.
