District Planning Authorities
1. The term 'district planning authorities' describes the group of authorities with responsibility for deciding planning applications at 'district level': metropolitan and non metropolitan districts, unitary authorities, London boroughs, national park authorities and urban development corporations.
2. Statistics of planning applications received and decided by district planning authorities have been collected on a quarterly basis since April 1979, on the PS1 and PS2 General Development Control statistical returns issued by DCLG.
3. Since then, data collection has been extended to cover other types of application requiring permission from local authorities, including listed building consents, conservation area consents and consent to display advertisements. This reflects the wider range of planning casework handled by district planning authorities. From April 1997, data have also been collected on receipt of Environmental Statements with planning applications, on the use of delegated powers, and on applications which the authority decided to advertise as departures from the Development Plan.
4. District planning authorities are sent the quarterly bulletin together with more detailed figures for individual authorities in their respective Government Office region. These provide a set of yardsticks against which authorities can judge their own figures.
5. Just under 700,000 applications would be expected to be considered by District Planning Authorities annually.
‘County matters’
5 .‘County matters’ planning applications are predominantly concerned with minerals extraction and waste disposal developments, as set out in Schedule 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and in the Town and Country Planning (Prescription of County Matters) (England) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003/1033).
6. Since April 1997 data have been collected on receipt of Environmental Statements with ‘county matters’ planning applications. From April 2000, information has also been collected on the total number of (i) decisions on applications for consent, agreement or approval of details or schemes required by conditions, as defined by Article 21 of the GDPO 1995, and (ii) determinations of new conditions under the review, or periodic review, of mineral planning permissions (ROMPs).
7. Around 2,000 applications are dealt with as County matters each year, though these would be expected to often be fairly substantial submissions with strong environmental implications. This compares to 700,000 or so applications considered by Districts, though a large number of these may be relatively minor and of local significance only.