Agenda item

To consider a report from the Director for Place and Climate Change that provides an update on the progress towards the completion of the Council’s Planning Service Improvement Plan.

Proposed time 30 minutes

Councillor Dixon reflected that he was now hearing more positive feedback from the public and that there were more constructive approaches being taken by the council’s planning service.

Councillor Hankins welcomed the improvement and that the pre application guidance is vital and individual applicants had appreciated it as well as the training for Parish Councils. The measure of success will be in six months’ time but so far so good.

Councillor Hankins asked about Section 106 agreements and whether a clearer definition of how, what and why agreements were reached would be useful.

Councillor Cushing further asked about the monies the Council received from Section 106 agreements and that they were being spent in a timely manner.

The Assistant Director Planning (ADP) advised that it could be worth focusing on these agreements with the Parish Councils as there does seem to be some misunderstanding of the processes involved as this was different to the community investment levy that other authorities across the country used.

The ADP added that the money the Council could get had to relate to the development and meet policy objectives. You did not want to get to the point where you had to give money back to the developer, the Council needed to deliver on the projects in a timely manner and be transparent on what was being spent. The Council now has an online system where you can see how the Council is spending this money.

Councillor Boyle welcomed the virtual training course and thanked the officers for turning round a challenging service to one that was receiving national recognition.

Councillor Heinrich stated that the two things that will make the biggest difference are the new validation list and the changes to the pre application process which can result in higher quality applications that can be more quickly assessed. Very few of the Council’s decisions on planning applications get overturned on appeal.

The ADP advised that the Council’s appeal record was astonishingly good, but it wouldn’t take many decisions for those percentages to come down. A perfect record might suggest that the Council is allowing too many of the marginal decisions. Getting the Improvement process completed doesn’t mean that the Council will stop to seek to make improvements to the service each year.

Councillor Holliday commented that there had not been a direct view taken from all the Parish and Town Councils on the service but there was a number of performance indicators being introduced although there was a concern about the total number of indicators involved.

The ADP stated that the Council did really well on the two metrics that the Government are most interested in, but it needed a bigger list of indicators to get a rounded assessment of how well the service was performing. It will be a challenge to stay at the top.

Councillor Dixon asked about the new government housing targets that could mean a lot more planning applications coming forward and to what extent the service has the capacity to adapt to that and whether any stress testing had been undertaken. 

The ADP advised that there had been little stress testing done. The Council will object to the new Government Housing Targets as they would see an increase from 550 applications to 900 applications a year in essence meaning another 8,000 units over a 20-year period. There were number of issues involved such as enough water, electricity or jobs in the district.

Resolved that –

(A) the changes and improvements made as a consequence of the Planning Service Improvement Plan process be welcomed; and,

(B) future performance reports will be made available via reports to Development Committee quarterly and annually.