Meeting documents

To consider report.

The Chair invited Cllr L Whetlor, Somerset West and Taunton Council to read out her statement to the Committee. The Chair also advised that Cllr Adam Boyden had asked to address the Committee on this item but he was unfortunately delayed. The Chair briefly summarised the concerns raised by Cllr Boyden - about the automatic referral process and that referral to the Strategic Committee should be as last resort and was asking consideration of the matter to be deferred to be considered at a later Committee meeting.

The Executive Lead Member Cllr Ros Wyke introduced the item, made some opening remarks and introduced Stuart Houlet, AD Inward Investment & Growth, Sedgemoor District Council and Lesley Dolan Legal Manager, Shape Legal Services. Cllr Wyke confirmed that she would be happy to take amendments on the proposals, but they would need to be checked by the Council’s legal advisers. There would be new Chairs, new Committees and a different way of doing things and there would therefore be a review each month with each committee and a further review after 6 months.

The Committee received a PowerPoint presentation and considered a report from the Council’s Monitoring Officer, Scott Wooldridge and Kevin Williams, Deputy MO, Somerset West and Taunton Council which detailed the Constitution documents for the proposed new planning function for the New Council – and included the following – proposed structure chart (set out at Appendix 1); proposed Terms of Reference and procedures for the Committees (set out at Appendix 2) and the Planning Protocol (set out at Appendix 3).

The proposals detailed in the report, offer a structure that would bring the County and District planning functions together in a single Committee format with the creation of 4 area based planning sub committees and a Strategic Planning Committee and Mr Houlet explained the process and circumstances for matters being referred to the Strategic Committee (developments of a certain size / ‘major applications’). The final draft of the arrangements would be brought to the next meeting of the Committee, as part of the overall Constitution document.

During the debate the following points were highlighted: -

·         Referring to the public statements received at the meeting, the Chair said that the main issue for discussion would be the reference up to the Strategic Planning Committee and the proposals regarding public speaking

·         Questioned as to why there would be automatic referral – Cllr Wyke said that the majority of planning applications would be considered by the area sub committees in first instance. Referral would happen if it was outside a local authority area, or a decision had been taken against officer recommendation. The driver for this was to ensure consistency.

·         Clarity of what is regarded as a ‘major’ application – this is an application which is 10 or more dwellings

·         Felt that automatic referral would disempower the sub committees and felt that the strategic committee would be ‘swamped’ with work- following best practice, to ensure safe decisions and provided added level of protection

·         Views expressed that members of the Strategic Committee would need to know all the local plans and it would be a huge level of work - also wondered why the term ‘subcommittee’ was used – clarified that referral was set at 21 days and its around time and efficiency. Confirmed that they could look at changing title of the area committees.

·         Number of other comments and concerns expressed about the role and purpose of the Strategic Committee; scepticism expressed about whether there was a need for a process beyond the area committees and if they needed to have a Strategic Committee, whether there should be the automatic referral at all – acknowledged the issue and would revisit the issues / principle.

·         Public participation – questions on public speaking arrangements set out in section 7.17 ff (Appendix 2) and the time limit proposed for 3 minutes in total; there was disquiet in the room as it seemed unfair

·         Referral by Parish Council, section 8.8 felt like a high bar

·         Section 13.2 (Appendix 3) – training – needed to be changed from ‘should’ to ‘must be done’

·         Section 8.4 (Appendix 2) – subheadings needed to be rewritten

·         Section 8.6 b (Appendix 2) - ‘change ‘senior officer’ to ‘senior or deputy Planning officer’ and remove the word ‘where possible’

·         Discussion on the community infrastructure level, S106 money, role of the Executive Subcommittee Planning Policy

·         Discussion on the size of the new committees and membership – that committee of 13 accepted as a reasonable number

Cllr Wyke confirmed again that she would take away all the comments received and look again

The Committee NOTED the proposals which would be considered again at the next meeting.