Agenda item

To consider the contents of the report.  

65.1           The report of the Development Manager, circulated at Pages No. 268-277, provided a statistical analysis of all decisions taken by the Planning Committee in 2019/20; an analysis of the cases where the Officer recommendations were not accepted; and a summary of the outcomes of the appeals against decisions made by the Planning Committee in 2019/20. Members were asked to consider the contents of the report in accordance with the requirements of the Protocol for Councillors and Officers Involved in the Planning Process.

65.2           The Development Manager highlighted a few points within the report drawing Members’ attention to the fact that there were the same number of cases reported to Committee as in the previous year but that there were a lower number of applications where the Committee took a different view; of the eight cases three were refused where Officers had recommended permit, and two of those were in fact in relation to the same site, and five were permitted where Officers had recommended refusal and one of those was a listed building consent allied to a full application. There was only one appeal that related to one of the applications that had been refused by Members where a different view had been taken in terms of landscape harm and that appeal had been allowed; the appellant had made an application for costs but this was not successful. Overall, the Development Manager did not think there were any particular issues that needed to be drawn to Members attention arising from the report and the analysis contained within the appendices.

65.3           A Member questioned whether this report was also going to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Development Manager clarified that, although this matter had originally arisen from Overview and Scrutiny and that Committee had agreed the format of the report and appendices that were required, the content was now only a matter for the Planning Committee to reflect upon. Another Member indicated that the report was quite interesting and highlighted that quite often the recommendations of the Planning Officers and the decisions of the Committee were right and only in very few cases did Members, when undertaking their very important role, take a different view from the recommendations of Officers. He maintained that most of the overturns made by the Committee had little impact as they were not always for additional build or only for one or two additional dwellings; what was of real interest to him was the number of houses that had received permission from the Planning Inspectorate over the last 10 years which he believed would run into thousands. He asked that a report be prepared for the Planning Committee listing the permissions granted by the Planning Inspectorate over the last 10 years. The Development Manager wished to clarify that recommendations and different decisions were not necessarily a case of being right or wrong it was a matter of judgement which came down to planning balance with different weights being placed on different considerations. In terms of a list being provided to Members in respect of the number of houses granted on appeal, the Development Manager indicated that he was happy to provide that information but it would come with a rider that a number of those applications were in the process and were in the Joint Core Strategy which was ultimately approved. It may be a question of timing when proposals were put to the Council before the Joint Core Strategy was adopted. He stressed that the information could certainly be provided through the Planning Policy team and he would circulate it to Members but it would not be as black and white as expected due to the reasons he had outlined. At the conclusion of the debate it was

RESOLVED          That the Annual Report on Planning Committee Decision-                                  Making in 2019/20 be NOTED.