Officer hourly rates

Planning Documents

In addition to document fees, charges are also made for officer time to search the archive. Documents held on microfiche may therefore incur an additional cost charged at £90 per hour pro rata, e.g. a 15 minute search will add £22.50 to the total fee. You can email site.history@merton.gov.uk if you require an estimate.

Other Searches

• Any additional request such as investigations, advice, etc. will be charged at an officer hourly rate.
• Any time spent over an hour will be subject to an additional fee of £180 per hour incl. VAT (pro-rata to15 minute intervals)
• All fees need to be paid before the response is provided.

Planning amendments

Following an intensive review of service, funding and performance within the department, carried out by the Planning Advisory Service, we are now charging for amendments made to planning applications, lawful development certificates, advertisement consents, listed buildings consents and discharge of condition applications. Therefore, if an amendment is required in order to make the proposal acceptable in planning terms, you will be obliged to meet our fee requirements. The charging schedule can be found here: Planning fees and charges

This charge may still be applied if the pre-application service was used but the advice provided was not followed.

However, if there is a substantial objection to your proposal you may be sent the refusal notice (giving reasons) without prior contact.

Variation of S106 Legal Agreements

Typically proposals to vary S106 agreements will form part of a S73 application to make minor material amendments to an existing planning permission. In such cases the council will not require a separate fee to cover planning officer costs to handle the variation of the original S106 agreement. However, the council's legal costs and those associated with procuring third party specialist advice, where this is reasonably required, will still need to be paid by the applicant.

Occasionally an applicant may consider it necessary to seek to vary a S106 agreement outside of a S73 application, typically where circumstances such as development viability have changed substantially since the original grant of permission, but where no material amendments are proposed to the development itself. In such circumstances the council charges the following fees for handling the request to vary the current S106 agreement.

The fees are reflective of the planning officer costs associated with responding to your request. Please note that they are not inclusive of the council's legal costs, which will be separately calculated by our solicitors and will be payable on completion of a deed of variation or closure of the solicitors file where a deed of variation is not entered into.

They also do not include any third party specialist advice that the council may reasonably need to procure to independently assess your proposed variation (such as viability advice). Where third party specialist advice is required, it will continue to be the expectation that the applicant will meet the costs incurred by the council.

For further advice on the timescales for negotiation of revisions to an original S106 agreement you should contact the original case officer using the contact details on the original decision letter.

You can also contact the Planning Team at planning@merton.gov.uk Timescales will be reflective of the complexity of the original S106 and the proposed variations and will need to be estimated by officers on a case by case basis.

Enforcement charges

Complying with an enforcement notice and seeking its withdrawal

Where an enforcement notice has been served to remedy a breach of planning control, you can request that our planning enforcement team confirm in writing whether the council agrees that the notice has been complied with. You can also request that an enforcement notice is withdrawn.

You can choose the appropriate service from the options set out in the table below. The fees charged for these services are reflective of the officer costs associated with responding to your request.

For further advice on the timescales for responding to requests please contact the Planning Enforcement Team by email: planenf@merton.gov.uk 

Contact us

Development Management
London Borough of Merton
Civic Centre
London Road
Morden
SM4 5DX

Email: planning@merton.gov.uk 

Fees for the above services are non-refundable.