Issue - meetings

The Committee considered the report of the Service Director, Legal and Governance providing an update on developments relating to Planning Enforcement since the December 2017 meeting. 

Following discussion with the Leader the following recommendations were agreed.

RESOLVED:

(i)  That the Administration add planning application performance relating to major and minor applications to the Council’s set of key corporate indicators;

(ii)  That key planning metrics are provided to the Planning Committee on a regular basis;

(iii)  That, reflecting the lack of political awareness of the planning performance data, officers review the processes and governance relating to the Council’s performance reporting and performance management;

(iv)  That a briefing paper is circulated to all Members on Section 70 Planning Powers;

(v)  That consideration is given to the actions that can be taken to improve the sharing of intelligence from HMO licensing and Planning Enforcement to support more informed, targeted and robust enforcement activity;

(vi)  That to help target enforcement action, work was undertaken to determine the holistic cost to the public purse generated by developers who are known to consistently disregard planning legislation.  Legal Services can then be challenged to find solutions to the issues raised;

(vii)  That consideration was given to how improvements could be made relating to keeping residents informed about enforcement activity, without impacting on the capacity of Enforcement Officers to undertake their enforcement role;

(viii)  That the Committee are provided with the contractual position relating to the provision of performance metrics for the Planning IT system (Planning Portal);

(ix)  That the Committee were provided with planning enforcement activity date for 2017/18;

(x)  That, within the law, officers consider best practice to minimise the amount of information that is made publicly available about residents who comment on planning applications through the Council’s Planning IT system.