In response to a Welsh Government consultation, Bridgend Council’s planning department has shown support for temporary planning rules brought in during the pandemic to become permanent (pdf).
Planning rules were relaxed during 2021 to aid the economic recovery from the early waves of the pandemic. These relaxed rules made it easier for businesses to provide temporary outdoor seating areas, pop-up shops and alike without needing to apply for full planning permission (known as permitted development rights).
In the consultation, the Welsh Government’s proposals for long-term changes to permitted development rights include:
- Consider the change of use for town centre buildings to be permitted development (won’t require planning permission, only notification to the planning department) – except for takeaways and industrial uses. This means “pop-up shops” can become a permanent fixture, allowing successful temporary businesses to continue trading in the same building beyond the current 6-month limit.
- Outdoor seating areas directly next to buildings serving food and drink can be retained without the need for planning permission.
- Changes to the rules around retractable awnings outside hospitality/food & drink businesses with a presumption in favour of planning permission as long as they are retracted overnight and don’t interfere with the road.
- Increased flexibility around rules concerning electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
- Health agencies will retain permitted development rules around temporary buildings to respond to future public health emergencies.
- Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) would no longer be considered a permitted development for alterations and extensions and would require full planning permission.
It should be stressed that these are only proposals at the moment and will require new regulations to be introduced at some point in the future.
There were some areas where the planning department didn’t agree. They didn’t support an extension beyond 14 days for temporary markets so they don’t “lose control” over certain developments.
Additionally, they didn’t agree with the proposals for awnings. Officers believe they should still require planning permission as they often vary in size and design.
They also didn’t support proposals to ensure that all new or replacement hard surfaces to the rear of a residential building should be permeable as they didn’t think it would be easy to monitor or enforce.
