The planning system is designed to be applied by local government and communities. Most parts of the UK have two tiers of local government (County and District) but in some areas of the country, single tier authorities have responsibility for both district level and county level planning matters and these are also referred to as Unitary authorities.
Tiers refer to the levels of local government structure that provide the planning services. So by breaking down these tiers into groups, there are:
Single-tier Authorities
The single-tier or Unitary authorities, that are responsible for almost all local government actions within their area and they include:
- Metropolitan Authorities
- London Boroughs
- Unitary or Shire Authorities.
Two-tier Authorities
Two-tier authorities are:
- County Councils
- District Councils
- Borough Councils
- City Councils.
