Agenda item

To receive questions from the public under Rules 4a.2(f) and 4a.8-18

Mrs Sheila White asked the following question:

With regard to these so-called minor application categories, research by your residents (and supplied to the Planning Director, Dr Lyons) has unsurprisingly shown that the number of such cases "called for Committee determination" by either residents, Parish Councils or Councillors is extremely small.  Since 2010 the average has been one case per year.

Please explain, therefore, why you feel it is necessary to remove that right, which is clearly only judiciously used when, rarely, such an application is causing concern.  This "right" has obviously no relevance to the purported objective of the changes, so why are you restricting it?

Councillor Michael Willett, the Chairman of the Governance Committee replied as follows:

I would like to thank Mrs White for her question.

As the Local Planning Authority, we are obliged to ensure that we make the best possible decision in each and every case and that we do so in a timely manner.  Given the volume of planning applications and related submissions that we receive it is vitally important that every aspect of our planning administration and decision making is as efficient and effective as possible.  A key part of this is to ensure that the more routine and less controversial matters are dealt with by the Director under a scheme of delegation that has been approved by Council.  This, in turn, allows the planning committees to concentrate on cases of wider and greater significance.

It is also important to stress that whoever is making the decision on a planning application – whether that is the Director or a Planning Committee – letters of representation from neighbours and others are carefully considered and taken into account.

The changes to the scheme of delegation that the Governance Committee debated and agreed to recommend to Council today were framed with those points very much in mind.

Turning to the specifics of this question, it is important to recognise that the categories referred to all concern developments of a very minor nature which are not normally controversial.  Indeed the rarity of requests to refer these matters up to committee in the past underlines that point.

Failure to make decisions in a timely manner has consequences.  Some years ago we came close to being placed into special measures because the speed of our decision making was not meeting the standards required by Government.  We have come a long way since then thanks to a lot of hard work by the Director and his team.  We need to ensure that we continue to run a tight ship and do not risk introducing unnecessary delays.

In addition to the special measures risk, we could also run the risk of non-determination appeals and if the scheme of delegation enabled prior approval and prior notification submissions to be referred to committee for decision we would face the very real prospect of running out of time to determine them.  In those circumstances the law states that the applicant would benefit from a deemed approval – thereby removing our control and influence over such proposals.

The changes proposed by the Governance Committee strike the right balance by ensuring we continue to subject the most significant developments to full public scrutiny in decision making at our planning committees, whilst also making sure we do not unnecessarily and unreasonably delay decisions that can and should be made under delegated authority by the Director.

Mrs White asked a supplementary question as to whether Members were worried about the public’s perception if minor applications that caused concern were not allowed to be heard by elected Councillors at planning committees but were instead determined by officers, particularly with regard to the Council’s own applications.  

Councillor Willett indicated that he had nothing further to add.