Agenda item

(Director of Governance) To consider the attached report arising from the work programme for the Select Committee for 2017/18.

The Committee was advised that a Local Validation Requirements List was required to be prepared by the Council, as the Local Planning Authority, to specify the information usually required to support planning applications of particular type, scale or location. It was reported that the local validation list was required to be reviewed every two years, in accordance with the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England)(Order) 2015 and that failure to review the validation requirement list would mean that the Council could only require planning application submissions to contain basic detail in order make them valid.

Members noted that all planning applications were required to meet the relevant elements of the local validation list in order to be considered ‘valid’, otherwise they would not be registered and consulted upon and that it was only when an application had been deemed to be valid, that the start date of the planning application process commenced. The current local validation requirement list had been agreed by the former Planning Services Scrutiny Panel in 2014 and was now due for review.

The Committee therefore considered a draft revised Local Validation Requirements List to provide guidance and certainty to applicants about the information required when submitting planning and related applications, to ensure that the Council had all the necessary information that it needed to determine applications within target times. Once agreed, it was intended that the revised local validation list would be used for registration purposes and be made available on the Council’s website.

The Committee also considered draft proposed guidance on the submission of viability and financial appraisals for affordable housing, that had been produced by the Director of Communities for incorporation within the Local Validation Requirements List. The Director of Communities reported that, in view of the increasing relevance of viability in planning matters and because of its complexity and the absence of detailed formal planning guidance at national level, there was considered to be a need for appropriate local guidance to be adopted.

RESOLVED:

(1)       That the draft revised Planning Application Requirement Validation Checklist and draft ‘Guidance Note to Planning Applicants on the Submission of Viability and Financial Appraisals for Affordable Housing’ be agreed;

(2)       That the draft Validation Checklist and Guidance Note be published on the Council’s website for a period of twenty-eight days, for consultation purposes;

(3)       That any comments submitted during the consultation period be considered by the Assistant Director of Governance (Development Management) and the Director of Communities and that the draft Validation Checklist and Guidance Note be amended as considered necessary and be adopted by way of a formal decision of the Governance and Development Management Portfolio Holder;

(4)       That the adopted Validation Checklist and Guidance Note be used for the purposes of registration of planning applications and be published on the Council’s website as part of the necessary information required to submit a planning application; and

(5)       That the Validation Checklist be kept under regular review and the Director of Governance be authorised to make minor amendments necessary to reflect changes in Government guidance or Council policy and guidance, without undertaking further consultation or seeking further member approval.