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