Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached minutes of the Joint Meeting of Development Management Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen, held on 20 April 2017, and any recommendations therein.

The Assistant Director (Governance), S Hill advised the Select Committee that the last joint meeting of the Development Management Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen was held on the 20 April 2017.

Planning Protocol

The new Planning Protocol had been drafted and would be considered by the Standards Committee and Constitution Working Group, as well as the Joint Meeting of the Development Management Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen. Representations had been made by Officers from the Planning Policy Team, which would be circulated in due course. The post Annual Council meeting training would be on the current Planning Protocol as this was still valid and would remain so for a while longer.

Area Plans Sub-Committees – Seating Arrangements

At their first meeting of the municipal year the three Area Plans Sub-Committees and the District Development Management Committee had each made a decision as to where they would like members of the public to sit at each meeting. All of the Area Committees apart from Area Plans Sub-Committee East had decided that speakers only would sit in the chamber and the general public would sit in the public gallery. Area Plans Sub-Committee East advised that they would like all speakers and general public to sit together in the chamber.

S Hill stated that the Council had a duty of care to the public, Members and Officers and there was a resource requirement to look at all procedures around planning committees. A scoping paper would come to all three committees before the end of the year.

Councillor Chambers suggested that a motion should go to the full Council. Mr Hill advised that Members should not rush into a decision before they had looked at the cost implications.

Councillor Waller stated that Area Plans Sub-Committee East had reservations about spending Council Resources and therefore had decided to sit all speakers and general public in the chamber.

Councillor Philip advised the Select Committee that he would be happy to take this away and get costs and bring it back to a future meeting of the Governance Select Committee.

Review of Planning Procedures

The proceedings of the Planning (Sub-)Committees held during the preceding six-month period was evaluated and consideration was given as to whether the procedure, policy and organisation of the (Sub-)Committees required review.

An unusually large number of planning applications were expected to be received by the Council once the Local Plan had been agreed, which would put pressure on the Development Management Team and Members of Planning (Sub-)Committees. Those aspects of the Constitution which dealt with Planning matters would need to be reviewed, including delegations, to ascertain if the current rules were still ‘fit for purpose’.

Members suggested that all large scale applications should go direct to the District Development Management Committee (DDMC), and not be heard at the Planning Sub-Committees. It was also suggested that the calling-in of planning applications by District Councillors could also be revised. N Richardson agreed that the Council could do this, although more meetings of DDMC would then be needed. There was an expectation from Officers that more planning applications would be received generally after the Local Plan had been agreed, not just large scale planning applications. S Hill advised the Group that the review would consider the best use of the time spent in determining applications at planning meetings.

N Richardson highlighted that there was a significant number of applications referred to a Committee meeting where the only objection to the application had been from the local Town/Parish Council, but then they did not attend the meeting to speak on the application and the application could have been dealt with under delegated authority by Officers. Members pointed out that if such applications were dealt with by Officers under delegated authority then Local Councillors would simply lobby District Councillors to call in applications that they objected to, in order to get them considered at a Planning Meeting. Members were reluctant to lose the automatic referral of planning applications to a meeting where the local Town/Parish Council had objected, and suggested that the Planning Officer could discuss the objections with the Local Council and possibly reject the referral. It was generally felt that the training of Local Councillors could be improved to enable more of them to attend and comment on applications on planning grounds at meetings. The Group were reassured that this issue would be included in the proposed review.

Review of Current and Future Training Needs

S Hill advised that although members were informed about scheduled training at the Planning Code of Practice training on 30 June 2017 only 5 members attended.