DCLG urges crackdown on unauthorised bank holiday building

The Communities and Local Government Secretary of State, Eric Pickles, has written to all Local Authority Chief Planners asking them to ensure that they have planning officers on call over the bank holiday weekend to deal with any unauthorised development that takes place, in a bid to reduce the number of retrospective planning applications that councils have to deal with.

The Secretary of State has also asked councils to be wary of any significant last-minute planning applications that are submitted before the bank holiday, to ensure that unauthorised development does get under way over the course of the weekend, before  enforcement action can taken on Tuesday.

He said: "This new coalition government will not stand back and allow a small minority of people to deliberately exploit the extended weekend and planning procedure to carry out unauthorised developments. That's why I'm calling on councils to take precautionary measures and make sure that they have planning officers ready to deal with any planning applications submitted over the weekend. We want to ensure fair play in the planning system and as part of this we will be strengthening the powers of councils to tackle unauthorised development."