LGA calls for Land Registry local land charges takeover plan to be axed

The Local Government Association has called on ministers to drop plans to transfer responsibility for local land charges to the Land Registry.

It said the proposal in the Infrastructure Bill should be halted until an independent review of the concept can take place.

Land charges services could be improved locally, instead of going through a national transformation “that is likely to have a negative impact on the system”, it said.

An LGA briefing noted that a survey among conveyancers by the Local Land Charges Institute last autumn found 67% preferred a local service and were satisfied with the overall provision by local authorities.

Centralising the service would hamper efforts to integrate it with planning, highways and other locally regulated services, it said.

The LGA also warned that handing land charges registration functions to the registry would separate them from the additional land searches process (known as CON29), which local authorities will continue to provide.

Councils would therefore still need to employ people to collate information locally for the registry, but would lose fee income.

“The proposals risk stripping councils of income, while leaving them with many of the current costs,” it said.

The LGA’s warnings came as the Land Registry confirmed its intention to proceed with the plan, despite widespread opposition.

Some 95% of respondents to the consultation said the organisation should not proceed with its plans to take over local authorities’ local land charge registration functions.

The LGA meanwhile had other concerns about the wide-ranging Bill, which draws together a number of measures related to the built environment.

It said community benefit and compensation packages for fracking should be put on a statutory footing and that fracking sites should be permitted only through councils and the planning system.

The LGA added that:

• It opposed proposals for deemed discharge of planning conditions. It said joint working between councils and developers was the most effective way to deal with any concerns about planning conditions.
• Amending the way planning conditions operate would fail to solve the housing crisis. “A better way to ensure the building of more homes is to remove both the Housing Borrowing Cap and councils housing expenditure from the UK index of public debt."
• The Bill should enable a local authority, or groups of authorities, to establish development corporations in the way the Mayor of London can. “These corporations can then support the development of new towns and garden cities and provide a way of delivering housing in a coordinated way.”
• The Bill should be amended to ensure that there is a clear legal obligation on the strategic highways companies to consult with local government.

A copy of the LGA’s briefing can be viewed here.

Mark Smulian