Several people have asked me about planning and what goes on - here is a brief ramble with some of the very basic background - as many will know I sit on the Development Control Committee - formerly known as Planning - it meets once a month: a daytime meeting that can be 3 hours long or as in the case of the last one closer to 7! In addition to this meeting there are also Site Visits - again usually once a month and are usually only 3 or so hours long - these Site visits are called when members are seeking more information - in some cases plans, descriptions, reports and all are not sufficient - in these cases a site visit is very important.
The next Development Control meeting is Tuesday and in the weeks prior to the meeting members get large amounts of paperwork. This includes lists of planning applications and decisions across the whole District - every development including conservatories, extensions, footpath changes and more. The majority of these are decided by officers in the planning department according to policies etc - if the decision is perhaps not straight forward then they go before the Development Control Committee - this can happen for various reasons like a certain number of people object in writing and the local Parish/Town Councils object etc.
On Tuesday we have 24 applications to consider - 7 of them have had Site Visits - the paperwork is 140 pages or so and all needs careful consideration - I've already spent many hours looking at them and how the policies in the Local Plan fit or don't - hopefully this process will get quicker for me as I learn more but I know from other members if you are to properly consider each application then it needs lots of time. In some cases one application can be for a Major Development - this week one application is a site for 1900 houses.
Officers make recommendations to the committee but the committee doesn't necessarily have to follow them - and doesn't always - the issues can be very complex - last time for example there was a site which has seen a horse gallop being built up more than the plans agreed. Indeed many tonnes extra of rubble and earth have been moved to the site with the hundreds of large lorries causing terrible suffering to villagers and allegedly the local road surfaces. Should SDC enforce and get them to remove the extra or is it better to leave and avoid many more lorry movements removing the stuff? Certainly the site is reported to not be to bad from a landscaping view but others say not to enforce is letting people get away with flouting the rules....
....we are discussing it further this Tuesday - and members on the committee do not express opinions about applications before Committee - a sensible precaution so that we hear all the evidence from all the parties before making a decision.
It is worth noting that for certain reasons members sometimes have to leave the room while a planning application is being heard eg the application is connected in someway with their interests, family or whatever - again there are guidelines about this to ensure transparency.
As a last point I note that the best place to go if you have a planning query is the Planning Department itself - however if there are particular issues I am happy to see if I can help - indeed already I have visited a couple of sites locally for specific issues.
More about planning and Stroud District Council see the website at:
http://www.stroud.gov.uk
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment