Commentary Part 6: Planning Chapter 5: Enforcement Section 126: Planning offences: time limits and penalties
319.Section 126 makes amendments to a number of planning-related offences in England. Subsection (2) raises the maximum penalty from level 3 on the standard scale (currently £1,000) to level 4 (currently £2,500) for failure to comply with a breach of condition notice under section 187A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
320.For most offences prosecuted in the magistrates’ court proceedings must be brought within six months of commission. In some cases it is not clear when an offence was committed, which can lead to difficulties in bringing forward a prosecution. Subsections (3) and (4) provide that prosecution for the offences of lopping or damaging a protected tree under section 210(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and of contravening regulations on the control of advertisements in section 224(3) of that Act, may be brought within six months of sufficient evidence of the offence coming to the prosecutor’s knowledge (but no more than three years after the offence was committed).