Provectus Remediation Ltd v Derbyshire County Council

Under regulation 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012, a planning fee is refundable where a valid application remains undetermined after 26 weeks. Where the applicant and local planning authority agree in writing to extend the determination period, the refund exemption applies even if the authority fails to decide within the extended period. The 26-week period is distinct from the statutory determination periods. Refunds are limited to the circumstances expressly specified in the Regulations.

The claimant had paid a planning application fee to the defendant local planning authority. After the original application was withdrawn, the claimant submitted a further application without paying an additional fee. The parties later agreed in writing to extend the period for determining that application to 7 November 2016. The authority did not determine it within that period, and the claimant sought repayment of the original fee.

In this Part 8 claim, the central issue was whether regulation 9A required repayment where the authority failed to determine an application within an agreed extended period, or whether the written-agreement exception removed the refund entitlement.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimant was not entitled to the declaration sought.
2. Regulation 9A was clear and unambiguous. A fee is refundable only where 26 weeks have elapsed from receipt of a valid application and the application remains undetermined by the local planning authority.
3. Regulation 9A(2)(a) excludes the refund rule where the applicant and authority have agreed in writing that the application is to be determined within an extended period. That exclusion remains effective even where the authority fails to determine the application within the agreed period.
4. The 26-week period was deliberately selected by Parliament and was not the same as the statutory determination periods, which could be 8, 13 or 16 weeks. Parliament had therefore limited refunds to the circumstances expressly stated in the 2012 Regulations.
5. The Explanatory Memorandum supported the interpretation, but the policy objective of timely decisions did not justify adding a further refund circumstance.
6. For completeness, the judge recorded the parties’ agreed view that a costs order for unreasonable conduct could not include repayment of the planning application fee. That issue did not affect the interpretation of regulation 9A.