The IHBC has submitted its response on the consultation from the Law Commission Consultation ‘Planning Law in Wales’, highlighting, among other points, potential threats to heritage resources and planning processes if Listed Building Consent processes are subsumed into planning, and the lack of evidence to the contrary.
IHBC Director Seán O’Reilly said: ‘It is with good reason that the IHBC has maintained its position that Listed Building Consent is not suitable for unification with planning permission. The two approvals exist for quite different reasons. Each is considered on a different basis, and even if there are, necessarily, overlaps in practice, that does not mean either (or both) are redundant.
‘Strengths evident in the current situation include the operational efficiency that the wider considerations in planning applications need not apply to the specialist consideration of Listed Building Consent processes, a simple logic that brings benefits both ways. Furthermore, we have seen no evidence that unification of the consents will deliver better outcomes.’
‘So, without clear evidence to the contrary, their intermingling will not necessarily produce other more efficient or more beneficial outcomes, not least given the specialist knowledge required for each.’
The IHBC writes:
‘As a statement of our initial view on the central point of this consultation, we do not consider that Listed Building consent should be unified with planning permission.’
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