Local Development Orders

Local Development Orders enable councils to make it simpler for certain types of development in an area to get planning permission. If you want development fast-tracked in your neighbourhood, working with the council may be a better bet than going for a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.

Local Development Orders enable councils to make it simpler for certain types of development in an area to get planning permission. If you want development fast-tracked in your neighbourhood, working with the council may be a better bet than going for a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.

In more detail

Local councils can give planning permission to certain kinds of development within defined areas to simplify planning for developers and enable faster development.   Local Development Orders can be used flexibly as part of different strategies and could be used as an alternative to community-led Neighbourhood Plans and Neighbourhood Development Orders.

Key Points

Local Development Orders can cover any area within that covered by a local planning authority.  They cannot cross local council boundaries, but neighbouring councils could declare identical LDOs applying to adjacent areas.  Key points about LDOs are:

  • they can be permanent (lasting until they are superseded by future policies) or they can be time-limited. Time-limited orders could be used to create a window of opportunity fro developers wishing to benefit from speedier planning.
  • they do not remove or supersede any existing planning permission or permitted development rights in the area they cover. They do not prevent a planning application being submitted to a local planning authority for development which is not specified in the Order.
  • they only grant planning permission – LDOs do not remove the need to comply with other relevant regulations. Councils can, however, use an LDO alongside other measures designed to reduce regulation in order to establish an Enterprise Zone or something similar aimed at attracting business and development in an area.

Uses

There are restrictions on the kind of development that can be enabled using an LDO, but an LDO can enable a wider range of development than a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order.  LDOs could be used, for example in:

  • Housing Development - an LDO can enable and focus housing development in a particular part of the area covered by an authority: a brownfield area, for example, which might otherwise be more difficult to develop and discourage potential developers.
  • Town Centres – an LDO could be used to revitalise a town centre which needs to find new uses (bearing in mind that an LDO can enable the change of use of buildings as well as planning permission).
  • Residential investment – an LDO could be used to enable and encourage small scale improvements to residential properties within a given neighbourhood and make it easier for landlords in a neighbourhood to coordinate their re-investment strategies so as to provide a collective boost to the area and, for example, enable the creation of local employment and training opportunities.
  • Innovation – enabling the development of new kinds of business or renewable power etc

And as alternative to a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order in enabling the kind of development favoured by communities in a particular neighbourhood.   The advantage of an LDO in this application would be that it can be done more quickly and without a referendum.  LDOs require public consultation, but the process of making such an order should be a matter of months.

Article 4 Directions

An Article 4 Direction is a different kind of local development order made by a planning authority under the 1995 Town and Country Planning Order. It removes normal permitted development rights (ie tightens development control) from a given class of property.

The video above is Ron Tate of the Royal Town Planning Institute explaining Article 4 Directions.

Key Facts:

Local Development Orders are issued by the council to simplify the process for getting planning permission for certain sorts of development in specified areas.  They can be used alongside other measures to create Enterprise Zones for particular kinds of development including those generating local employment.  If you want to encourage development in your neighbourhood, then working with the council, if you can, should be quicker and easier than setting up a community-led Neighbourhood Development Order process.

Page Links from here

In this toolkit:

Neighbbourhood Development Orders

Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs)

Conservation Areas

Neighbourhood Design Statements

Tree Preservation Orders


OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.

BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.

created: 2016-06-05 15:31:32 by: admin status: f published