Part 6: Planning in England Planning permission etc Section 157: Planning applications etc: setting of fees
Section 157 amends section 303 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (fees for planning applications etc), so that regulations made under that section which would previously have required the hybrid procedure in Parliament are now subject to the usual affirmative procedure instead.
	Under section 303, the Secretary of State may make regulations which allow a local planning authority to charge a certain fee when a planning application is made to them. The fee varies depending on the type and complexity of the planning application. Such regulations are usually subject to the affirmative procedure in Parliament, which requires that they are debated and voted upon before they can come into force. However, if changes were made to the level of fees charged by only some authorities rather than all authorities, then previously it is likely that the regulations concerned would be treated as a 'hybrid instrument' and would be subject to an extended Parliamentary procedure. Regulations which apply different fee scales to different areas could include those which allow for greater fee flexibility in areas that bring forward radical proposals for service reform under devolution deals, or where local authorities act as pilots in order to test the benefits of competition in the processing of planning applications. This section provides that all fees regulations made under section 303, regardless of whether they apply to all or only some authorities, will follow the normal affirmative procedure.