Infrastructure Wales Bill – Fees

This consultation response outlines our opinion on infrastructure consent functions and services. We suggest that the fees involved for functions and services should be charged on a consistent and proportionate basis. We also expect that the fees generated should be ring-fenced within the department and lead to improvements in service quality.

To ensure consistency, all projects, regardless of their location, should adhere to the same development regulations. This helps to encourage investment across regions and remove locational biases. For example, baseline fees should be set at a national level to provide predictability for developers.

Fees should be proportionate to the project’s services and functions with complexity as a scale instead of size/scales. Increased fees for additional services on a local level should be accompanied by a predefined framework that outlines the fees and the corresponding services, agreed in advance with the developer.

It should be expected that projects will be delivered more efficiently following increased fees. Performance reporting can act as a safeguard to be placed on locally determined system fees, measured by the speed of decision-making against the statutory determination period. If an applicant does not receive services proportionate to the level of fee that has been paid, a refund should be considered.

The funds generated should be ringfenced to fund the planning department within a given LPA and translate into genuine improvements in service quality. We recommend that additional fees be implemented to establish a planning hub for supporting under-resourced LPAs in conducting technical assessments for renewable projects.

For detailed information, download our full response below.

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