To hear from the Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning regarding current and future arrangements for planning.
To also consider the Cabinet report ‘Review of planning call-in arrangements within Constitution’ scheduled for consideration on 12 July 2019, which will propose changes to arrangements for planning decisions to enable local engagement. The O&S Board is asked to scrutinise the report and make recommendations to Cabinet as appropriate.
Cabinet member invited to attend for this item: Councillor Margaret Phipps, Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning.
The Cabinet report will be published on Thursday 4 July 2019 and available to view at the following link:
https://democracy.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=285&MId=3720&Ver=4
Minutes:
The Overview and Scrutiny Board considered the Planning Arrangements report which would be presented to Cabinet on 12 July. The current arrangements for Planning were agreed by the Shadow Authority, however at the time it was acknowledged that the new Council may need or wish to make revisions to the agreed arrangements. The Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning was asked to present the key elements of the report and consequently outlined the main recommendations and provided detail on the reasons for these. One of the main reasons for the proposed changes was the apparent lack of public engagement in the Planning Board process.
The Chairman opened the meeting to comments from the Board and the following points were raised:
· In response to a question on the impact of the changes the Portfolio Holder explained that it would be a matter of time to identify what the impact was but there would undoubtedly be an increase in the workload of the Planning Committee. However, the changes were felt necessary for public engagement. The Board raised concerns that there may be a risk of non-determination within the stipulated timescales. The Portfolio Holder responded that this was likely to be addressed through redirecting resources.
· A Councillor stated that they agreed with the proposed changes in principle but that they would need careful work in monitoring and implementing if they were to work correctly. The Councillor expressed their opinion that there would be many more requests and that there was a significant learning curve for the 76 councillors. The Portfolio Holder responded that Democratic Services and Legal would be producing a call-in form and call-ins would require proper material planning reasons to be provided.
· Issues were raised about any Councillor being able to call-in an application even if outside of their ward. The Board noted that when arrangements for this were agreed by the Shadow Authority national guidelines were followed. It was acknowledged that some applications would have an impact on adjacent wards but employing this for the large area covered by BCP council may prove difficult. The Portfolio Holder confirmed that the preceding Councils all had different criteria, but valid planning grounds would always need to be provided for any call-in request. A Councillor proposed that the Board recommend to Cabinet that the recommendation in the Cabinet report at 2 be amended that if a Councillor calls-in a planning application it must affect their ward. There was general agreement on this, although one Councillor commented that a Councillor may see something in another ward and suspect an impact from it in their own ward. The Portfolio Holder accepted that the suggested amendment to the recommendation may be helpful.
· The Board expressed concern that some statutory consultees were effectively being given powers to refer items to the Planning Committee. This would give greater powers to some statutory consultees than others and would also mean some residents had more avenues to get a planning application called-in if they lived in an area with a parish council or a neighbourhood forum. The Portfolio holder responded that this had always worked well in Christchurch previously and all residents would still be able to ask their ward councillor to make a call-in. It was felt by some councillors that areas without parish councils or neighbourhood forums should have some democratic recourse for residents to call-in a planning application. For these reasons the Overview and Scrutiny Board did not feel that it could support recommendation 6 in the Cabinet report.
· There was discussion concerning the timetable for the publication of public notices for planning applications in comparison to when an application was registered and the 30-day timescale for call-ins to be received. It was suggested that the wording in one of the recommendations could be amended to address this concern. The Portfolio Holder suggested that this could be looked into depending upon its impact on the application process.
Resolved that:
(a) Cabinet be recommended that recommendation 2 as outlined in the Cabinet report be approved with the following amendments:
· That, after the words “material planning issues,” the words “that affect their ward” be added.
· That at the end of the recommendation the following words be added: “provided that the issue has been discussed with the Ward Councillors or that the Ward Councillors have been informed”.
(b) That the Overview and Scrutiny Board did not support recommendation 6 as outlined in the Cabinet report.
Note 1: The O&S Board informally requested that the Portfolio Holder for Strategic Planning to consider widening the scope to have planning issues brought to the Planning Committee through public involvement, through means such as the number of valid representations to planning applications.
Note 2: The O&S Board informally requested that the Portfolio Holder consider amending the wording of recommendation three to change “date the application was registered” to “date the notice was displayed”.
(c) The Overview and Scrutiny Board supported the recommendations as outlined in the Cabinet report with the exception of those noted above.
Voting: For 13, Against 0, Abstained 1