Dear
Councillor
Since
my last communication I have been
in correspondence with Mark Ketley and a change to the planning process
has
been agreed. This will make it more open and transparent and
potentially allows
Town and Parish Councils an opportunity to ensure decisions are made on
accurate information.
When
the Planning Officers are considering
a decision which is contrary to the recommendation of the Town and
Parish
Council they have the option of either taking it to a Planning
Committee, or
seeking approval from the Chairs of the Planning Committees to deal
with the
application by delegated powers. In future, when the application is
referred to
the Chairs a report of this referral and the decision reached will be
sent to
the relevant Town or Parish Council straight after the meeting.
At
this point the final decision on
approval or rejection of the application will not have been taken and
there is
a small window of opportunity for the TPC to affect that decision. The
report
of the meeting with the Chairs will provide information of the facts on
which
the decision is to be made and if it is apparent that this information
is
lacking or inaccurate then this should be brought to the attention of
the
Planning Officer as soon as possible.
These
discussions have all related to
the bureaucratic systems of the Council. At the end of the day these
systems
are just that, but the recommendations and decisions are made by
individuals.
What is clear from my correspondence with Mark is that Planning
Officers are
duty bound to take account of any information they receive. It the
application
is significant to your community, and your recommendation may be
contentious,
find out the name of the Planning Officer and establish a dialogue to
ensure
they are fully aware of all of the facts and their implications to the
application. The developer will be doing just that and we owe it to our
communities to redress the balance.
I
would like to thank the Parish
Councils that responded to my questionnaire. Something was achieved.
The system
should now be more open and transparent and a new opportunity to
influence the
decisions of the planners has been created.
Best
wishes
Bryn
Owen