Agenda item

The Chairman took the opportunity to remind the Committee that the report was for noting only.

The Development Management Manager explained that the Planning Performance Information was for Quarter 2 – 1^st July to 30^th September 2024; and that he was happy to take any questions on the information provided.

The Development Management Manager further highlighted that the assessment periods had  traditionally been over a 2-year period (with a 9-month lag for the quality measure to enable the processing of associated appeals).

In December 2024, the Government updated its criteria document. The updated document retained the same performance thresholds but confirmed the new assessment periods which included a change to the assessment period for speed of decision-making from 24 months to 12 months. This change had been made so designation decisions were made on more up-to-date data and were  more responsive to changes in performance and had come into effect from the period ending September 2024. The updated document would be used for designation decisions in the first quarter of 2025 and 2026. There were no changes regarding the period over which the quality measure was assessed.

The Development Management Manager drew Members’ attention to Appendix 1 to the report, the Major Appeal Decisions Quarter 2 and the Non-Major Appeal Decisions Quarter 2.

Officers were not overly concerned with the Non-Major Appeal Decisions, in terms of the decisions made, as sometimes the officer’s recommendation did not always tally with the appeal decision, as some of this was to do with subjectivity in terms of design, impact on neighbours, and therefore the inspectorate had made a different decision.

In response to questions from Members, the Development Management Manager referred to page 63, paragraph 7.3 of the main agenda pack, that the current published data ran for the period July 2021 - June 2023. The data was intentionally nine months behind the date of publication to allow a time lag for appeals in the pipeline to be determined.

With regards to costs against the Council for the Non-Major Appeal Decisions detailed on pages 70 of the main agenda pack, there were no costs against the Council. The rules had recently changed to allow household applications (non-major) applications to apply for a cost award.

Members asked if the costs against the Council figures could be included in future reports.

The Development Management Manager explained that cost submissions set out as to why costs have been awarded. There could also be some negotiation between the Council and the applicant. The Planning Inspector would be quite precise on costs awarded. Members were further informed that there could be a ‘lag’ in getting the information on costs awarded and preparing these quarterly reports. With this in mind, officers would be happy to provide this information separately to Planning Committee Members.

Members agreed that good planning decisions needed to be made, and that Members should not have to be mindful, when making such decisions, of the possibility of costs against the Council being made.

Members suggested that future Planning training could include looking at previous Planning Committee decisions as lessons learnt and to also build up Members skills sets.

RESOLVED that the Planning Performance Information report, Quarter 2 – 1^st July to 30^th September 2024, be noted.