Residents and developers who want to make changes to their planning applications will face new charges at two Staffordshire councils.

New fees are also being brought in for directly submitting an application to Stafford Borough Council or Cannock Chase District District Council, instead of through the Planning Portal, as well as footpath diversions and requests to remove extant enforcement notices.

Stafford Borough Council has been dealing with a backlog of planning applications for a number of years.

Cabinet members at both authorities agreed to introduce the new administration fees at their latest meetings.

A report to the borough council's cabinet meeting said: "It is anticipated that the introduction of the proposed charges will mitigate the staff time spent in processing of planning applications or updating planning records.

"All proposed charges have been calculated on the basis of staff time input, ensuring that the charge does not exceed the cost of providing the service.

"Currently the validation team spends a significant amount of time supporting customers who haven't adequately prepared applications, which could mean repeated requests for information involving numerous exchanges requesting and clarifying the nature and detail of missing information.

"Applicants are frequently requesting flexibility in validation processes and repeated resubmission as well as submitting amendments to planning applications.

"The current approach prevents the continuous streamlining of the process and it also means that customers are receiving extra support they have not paid for, which also risks affecting the service levels provided to other customers.

"Further, some applicants are however using the validation process as a negotiating tool to make their scheme acceptable prior to it being fully registered, as opposed to entering a pre-application process, where the council can provide sound planning advice in which the validation requirements are outlined.

"The current rate of invalidation is too high – around 31% – and the application of a charge is primarily to seek to secure high quality submissions that can be validated at the first attempt.

"Developers and applicants do on occasion submit a planning application directly to the council and this may be with the intention to avoid the Planning Portal fee or it is the easiest way for them to submit an application.

"A postal or directly submitted application requires officer time to scan and prepare the documents to an appropriate format and forward the information onto the Validation team.

"The application fee is intended to cover validation but the further checks and administrative tasks to receive and format the submission into an electronic file are additional."

Cllr Ant Reid, cabinet member for economic development and planning at Stafford Borough Council, said: "The proposed new surcharges relate to planning activities that are quite rare or should be rare, yet take an inordinate amount of effort – a disproportionate amount of effort – to complete.

"It is entirely valid we have the right charges on these things to compensate for these activities.

"If we weren't to do this, the cost gets spread amongst not only all applicants, but rate-payers and business rates as well.

"It's entirely appropriate these costs – which are relatively modest in nature – be applied to just the applicant themselves.

"Delegated authority (will be given) to the head of economic development to waive or reduce these administrative fees in exceptional circumstances."

Proposed new charges at Stafford Borough Council and Cannock Chase District Council:

Amendments to planning applications

Householder/LDC/Advert – £75.00

Minors (including change of use) – £100

Majors £250 per amendment

Planning applications submitted directly to the council – £53

Footpath diversion applications – £445

Compliance with/removal of extant Enforcement Notices – £75

Withdrawal of a notice – £257