Part 6: Planning in England Planning permission etc Section 155: Local planning authorities: information about financial benefits
Section 155 inserts a new section 75ZA into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to ensure that potential financial benefits of certain development proposals are made public when a local planning authority is considering whether to grant planning permission.
	The majority of decisions on planning applications are taken under delegated authority by an officer of a local planning authority, with the more controversial or larger developments being considered by a committee or sub-committee. Where a committee is considering an application, it will normally be assisted by a report prepared by an officer (and made public) which includes a recommendation as to how an application should be determined. The new section 75ZA requires local planning authorities to make arrangements for officers’ reports to planning committees, or to the authority itself, containing such a recommendation to include a list of financial benefits which appear to the person making the report to be likely to be obtained by the authority as a result of the proposed development if it is carried out.
	The financial benefits to be listed include local finance considerations (which will include sums payable under the Community Infrastructure Levy, and grants or other financial assistance provided by central government) or any other benefit which is set out by the Secretary of State in secondary legislation.  A financial benefit must be recorded regardless of whether it is material to an authority’s decision on a planning application, but the officer will need to indicate their opinion as to whether the benefit is material to the application or not.  The section does not in any way change those matters that are capable of being material to planning decisions.
	The Secretary of State has power to require a financial benefit to be recorded where it is payable to another person or body rather than to the authority making the planning determination.  The Secretary of State also has power to set out in regulations any further information about a financial benefit which must be recorded in a planning report. This might include, for example, an estimate of the amount of the benefit in question.