A glut of planning applications were lodged with Powys county planners ahead of a Welsh Government fee increase coming into force last month, councillors have been told.

At a meeting of Powys council’s Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee on 27 January councillors probed the 2026/2027 budget proposals in several areas, including Planning and Regulatory Services.

In the budget documents is a line predicting that £50,000 will be made from the increased planning fees next year.

This will go towards a £12.3 million cuts and savings target that the council has to make in order to balance the £2026/2027 budget which totals £390.5 million.

Cllr Corinna Kenyon-Wade asked: “When will full scale of the increased fees from Welsh Government be fully realised?”

Council Leader Cllr Jake Berriman said: “The issue we have here is that whilst the uplift in fees has been implemented, what we’re not clear about is what the impact on planning applications will be with the number coming through.

“We did see a bit of a rush of applications come in before the fee increase. It’s one of these areas of the industry that we don’t know until it settles down.”

Cabinet member for Legal and Regulatory Services, Cllr Richard Church said that the fee increase came in “at very short notice” and “there wasn’t long” for people to get their application into the council

Cllr Church said: “A dip has followed afterwards and we’ll have to wait over the next few months before we know what the long-term pattern is.”

Cllr Berriman reminded the committee that the council had been “leading the charge” by local authorities in Wales to increase planning fees.

In December 2023, Council Leader, Cllr Jake Berriman in his previous role as the Cabinet Member responsible for Planning had a notice of motion unanimously backed by councillors to lobby the government to allow Powys to set its own planning fees.

From 1 December, planning fees increased throughout Wales, with future annual adjustments linked to inflation and provisions for full cost recovery.

The government’s intention is that will help address: “the existing deficit between the cost of determining applications and the income received for providing this service.”