Building Safety Levy – Previously Developed Sites Discount: Update

When Mills & Reeve assembled a team of lawyers from across the built environment sector to explain the Building Safety Levy back in May, I somehow made the team to discuss the 50% discount which applies to previously developed sites. I remarked that each of the criteria to qualify for the discount potentially opens its own can of worms, so it’s welcome news that ministers have now sought to clarify some of the drafting with a number of tweaks in a draft set of amendment regulations due to come into force on 1 October.

First a brief reminder on the discount. The Building Safety Levy is calculated using an area rate. The area rate is discounted by 50% if the approved chargeable scheme is on a “previously developed site” (PDS). To be a PDS, at least 75% of the land to which the relevant planning permission relates needs to be “previously developed”. And land is “previously developed’” if a building has been situated on it at some point on or after 1 July 1948, subject to various