Issue - meetings

(Councillor J Philip for the Constitution Working Group) To consider the attached report.

Councillor J. Philip presented a report on behalf of the Chairman of the Constitution Working Group regarding a review of the current arrangements for the delegation of planning-related matters to officers to ensure a smooth implementation of the Local Plan.

Councillor J. Philip advised that the words in Article 10 of the Constitution (District Development Management Committee and Areas Plans Sub-Committee) Appendix 3 (9) “after the 6 week deadline” should also be removed.

Carried

Report as amended ADOPTED

RESOLVED:

(1)          That the words “Director of Governance” in paragraph (3) of the Working Groups Terms of Reference be replaced with the words “Monitoring Officer” as set out in Appendix 1 to this report.

(2)          That the revised planning delegation (currently numbered CLD 2 in the scheme of delegation from the Council) as set out at Appendix 2 to the report be approved;

(3)          That Article 10 of the Constitution (District Development Management Committee and Area Plans Sub-committees) be amended as follows (and as set out in Appendix 3 to the report):

(i)           within the section on the Terms of Reference of the District Development Management Committee, the deletion of the following words in paragraph (f) of that subsection, “(and/or a spouse or partner thereof)” and the insertion of the words “(and/or their relevant person as defined in the Council’s Code of Conduct)”;

(ii)           within the section on the Terms of Reference of the Area Plans Sub-committees, deletion of paragraph (5) of that subsection and the insertion of a new paragraph (5) as follows:

            “(5)      Planning applications made by officers of Service Director level and above”

(iii)          within the section on the Terms of Reference of the Area Plans Sub-committees the inclusion of the following additional words as a new subsection:

“(7)       To request officers to undertake enforcement action on a site where members have refused a retrospective planning application; and

(8)        To require a report to the relevant Plans Sub-committee from officers in those cases where no further action is subsequently proposed, such a report to give option to refer enforcement action to the District Development Management Committee; and

(9)        To require such report be made within 2 months after the elapsing of the timescale within which a retrospective application can be appealed and that the sub-committee is informed if an appeal has been launched.”;

(4)          That the Monitoring Officer be asked to make the required changes to the schedule of delegations and Article 10 of the Constitution; and

(5)          That the Constitution Working Group be asked to undertake a review of the impact of these changes after a year of operation.

(Assistant Director of Governance) To consider the report (attached).

(a)          Revised new delegation schedules

The Assistant Director (Governance) explained for the new members of the Working Group that the Planning Process Review had so far been considered at its meetings in January, February and April 2018. However, as it had been agreed the first consultation with all members and local councils in April was too short, a second but longer consultation had been carried out from 2 May to 6 June 2018 with the same consultees.

Appendix 1   detailed a few amendments that had been achieved from the first consultation and a Replacement Planning Delegations document, CLD2 Replacement, was published in this agenda.

Appendix 2   detailed the comments received from the first consultation.

Appendix 3   collated members’ responses; and

Appendix 4   was the local councils’ responses and appendix 5 showed the current delegations.

Appendix 3: members’ responses

Councillor H Brady felt that the Council was taking powers away from local councils and that members had been elected to spend more time in planning meetings if this was required so that full, householder, outline and variations of conditions planning applications should come to the Area Planning Sub-Committees.

Councillor P Stalker supported a quality control system. The bar needed to be raised in terms of the quality and relevance of objections from local councils and that the clerk should have received appropriate planning training to facilitate advice at its meetings when planning applications were being commented on. If a written objection was received from a local council that clearly had no merit in planning terms, there should be a system whereby a senior planning officer (perhaps in consultation with a non-ward member) could screen out inappropriate objections, advise the local council of the reasons why, and thus optimise the Area Planning Sub-Committees’ time.

Councillor G Chambers was strongly against reducing the planning committees, and would welcome more committee meetings for Buckhurst Hill and Chigwell. The more delegated powers taken away from residents would not be welcomed either. He was concerned over who would decide what was material to the planning merits of an application (A 3) and (A 4). He would prefer two objections for an application to come to an Area Planning Sub-Committee with an objection from a local council (A 3b). There needed to be some consideration for the remoter parts of the District. He suggested stopping outline applications (A (c)). On members’ applications (A 5), from a public perception point of view, these should go to the District Development Management Committee (DDMC) as currently, or moved to another Area Planning Sub-Committee, but applications from senior officers could be determined by an Area Planning Sub-Committee.

Councillor E Webster, who had attended the informal meeting of the planning committees chairmen and vice-chairmen on 31 May 2018, had two main concerns. She would like more clarification on material planning merits, who decided them and how this was achieved, and that this appeared to be the responsibility of the Head of Planning. She recommended that members and local councils were given a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6