Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached report.

The Sub-Committee received a report regarding “Probity in Planning – Appeal Decisions 1 April to 30 September 2014.

In compliance with the recommendation of the District Auditor, this report advised the decision making committees of the results of all successful allowed appeals. The reason being to inform the committee of the consequences of their decisions in this respect and, in cases where the refusal was found to be unsupportable on planning grounds, an award of costs may have been made against the Council.

Since 2011/12, there had been two local indicators, one measured all planning application type appeals as a result of committee reversals of officer recommendations (KPI55) and the other which measured the performance of officer recommendations and delegated decisions (KPI54).

Over the six month period between 1 April and 30 September 2014, the Council received 36 decisions on appeals (29 of which were planning related appeals, the other 7 were enforcement related).

KPI54 and 55 measured planning application decisions and out of a total of 29, 10 were allowed (34.5%), broken down further KPI54 performance was 4 out of 18 allowed (22.2%) and KPI55 performance was 6 out of 11 (54.6%).

Out of the planning appeals that arose from decisions of the committees to refuse contrary to the recommendation put to them by officers during the 6 month period, the Council was not successful in sustaining the committee’s objection in the following cases from this sub-committee:

(1)          EPF/0942/14 69 Queens Road, Buckhurst Hill, retention of ground floor rear extension; and

(2)          EPF/2595/13 Chigwell Food and Wine, 10 Brook Parade, High Road, Chigwell, change of use from Class A1 to Class A5 takeaway use together with installation of extract duct on roof of cold room at the rear.

Therefore, the committees were urged to continue to heed the advice that if they were considering setting aside the officer’s recommendation it should only be in cases where Members were certain that they were acting in the wider public interest and where there was a good indication of success at defending the decision.

However, the Sub-Committee had been successful in the following 3 cases where an appeal had been dismissed following a committee reversal of officer recommendation:

(a)          EPF/0219/14 49 Southern Drive, Loughton, single storey side and rear extension with part second storey to side and rear;

(b)          EPF/2664/13 48 Church Lane, Loughton, re-development of site to create four detached dwellings, formation of vehicular access and car parking; and

(c)          EPF/0941/13 Land adjacent 20 Ollards Grove, Loughton, new semi-detached house and alterations to existing dwelling.

Of 7 enforcement notice appeals decided, 2 were allowed and 5 were dismissed. One of these appeals was within the Plans South area and was dismissed.

It was advised that there had been an award for costs against the Council during this period. Members were also advised that recent appeal changes allowed planning inspectors to award costs against a party that had behaved unreasnobly even if neither the Council or the appellant had applied for costs.

Whilst performance in defending appeals had improved during the last couple of years, Members were reminded that in refusing planning permission there needed to be justified reasons that were not only relevant and necessary but also sound and defendable.

RESOLVED:

That the report regarding Probity in Planning Appeal Decisions 1 April to 30 September 2014 be noted.