ABSTRACT
One proposed change that failed to materialise, was the 1994 proposal to allow individual local planning authorities to set planning application fees at a level which would enable them to recover the costs they incur in processing planning applications. In November 1996 the Government announced its intention to allow householders to extend their gardens into surrounding farmland, after a number of high profile cases had shown heartbroken people having to surrender their extended gardens back to farmland, because they had failed to seek planning permission. The Town and Country Planning Act 1995 regularised the practice of charging local planning authorities for employing planning inspectors on development plan inquiries, which had existed since 1976 when the first local plan inquiry was held, but for which no legal basis had existed till this Act was passed. The Town and Country Planning Regulations 1997 updated the 1991 regulations.
