Agenda item
Planning Delegations - Briefing Paper
Minutes:
The Head of Planning and Regeneration attended the meeting to present a briefing paper on the subject of planning delegations and in so doing raised the following for the Board’s consideration:
· Planning Officers had delegated powers to determine non-material amendments to applications.
· There had been some concern about a recent Officer decision to grant temporary parking on part of the open space at a new development in Cofton Hackett. However, this had been considered non-material as the arrangement would last for 3 years and only impact on a small area of open space.
· Non-material amendments related to small changes which were usually made to features such as doors and balconies.
· Planning Officers were not required to consult when considering requests for non-material amendments.
· Non-material amendments were designed to enable quick decision making in the planning process and needed to be determined within 14 days.
· There was no simple definition of what constituted a non-material amendment and this was therefore down to the discretion of officers to determine at a local level.
Members discussed the background to the item and noted that it had formed the basis of a Notice of Motion at Council earlier in the year. The key concern underpinning the motion was the Officer decision in respect of a crematorium, which followed rejection of an application for a crematorium by the Planning Committee on a number of occasions. The ward Councillor had identified the crematorium when considering the list of such applications circulated to Members. The crematorium had been considered by Officers as a variation of an application.
Concerns were expressed about the subjective nature of non-material amendments. Members highlighted the potential for such amendments to occur in developments where there were local concerns which Officers might not be familiar with. It was suggested that ward Councillors and perhaps Parish Councils could be consulted in cases where non-material amendments arose which were more complicated than minor amendments to doors, windows or balconies. The Board proposed that this could take the form of a written list of such items being circulated to Members. The onus would be on Members to highlight any concerns with Officers more quickly due to the 14 day timeframe available to consider such amendments and Officers suggested that it would be useful to review the impact of this process in a few months’ time.
There were also concerns raised in respect of the manner in which Planning Officers communicated with ward Councillors about planning applications for developments in their wards. Whilst there was recognition that Officers needed to be in regular contact with developers and residents as part of the Planning process it was suggested that action could be taken to notify ward Councillors at an earlier stage when applications involved more contentious developments. The Board suggested that this would enable ward Councillors to support their residents and respond to enquiries about these applications more effectively.
Members noted that there was the potential for action to improve the process in relation to non-material amendments, particularly in respect of communications. The possibility of assessing this through a Task Group exercise was discussed, though Members noted that there were already a number of scrutiny reviews taking place or scheduled to begin in due course. In the meantime the Board accepted a suggestion from the Portfolio Holder for Planning Services and Strategic Housing to speak with the Chairman of the Planning Committee and Planning Officers about action that could be taken to improve this process. The outcomes of these discussions would be reported for the consideration of the Board in due course.
RESOLVED that
(1) Officers circulate a list of non-material amendments for the consideration of ward Members from January 2017 and to be reviewed in 4 months; and
(2) An update on the outcomes of the Portfolio Holder for Planning Services and Strategic Housing’s discussion with the Chairman of the Planning Committee and Planning Officers to be provided at a future meeting of the Board.
Supporting documents:
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