Enforcement
The Authority has a dedicated Enforcement Team which is responsible for handling complaints alleging a breach of planning control and for monitoring new developments to ensure compliance with approved plans.
Whilst it is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that development is carried out in accordance with the approved plans and any conditions attached to the planning permission, the Authority’s Enforcement Team will monitor new development to ensure that development takes place in accordance with the approved plans. In many cases planning permission are issued with conditions which require further information to be submitted before or during the course of development. The Enforcement Team will follow up any failure to submit information and also visit sites to check work in progress.
The way in which enforcement cases are handled is substantially influenced by the way in which the legislation is framed. There are four key points which govern the enforcement processes:
- a breach of planning control is not a criminal offence (other than in a few limited circumstances) and so immediate legal action is not usually an option;
- enforcement action can only be taken where it is ‘expedient’ to do so, which means the Authority cannot take action against a development which we would have granted planning permission had it been applied for in the normal way;
- all of the Government advice urges negotiation to try and resolve enforcement issues, other than in the most serious cases, before formal action is taken. This has implications for the length of time the processes can take.
- it is open to people to apply for planning permission retrospectively in an attempt to regularise unauthorised development.
The document “ Monitoring and Enforcement” provides further advice on the Authority’s procedures and timescales for enforcing compliance with planning controls.
- Introduction
- What is a breach of planning control?
- The New Forest National Park Authority's Enforcement Policy
- How to report a breach of planning control
- What do we do next
- How do we take formal action
- What happens after notices are served
- Government guidance on how and when to take enforcement action
- The enforcement powers
- Why can enforcement action take so long
- Complaints about the monitoring and enforcement Service
- Freedom of information
- Reports
Monitoring and Enforcement (72 KB) complete document
