Issue - meetings

To bring forward an updated local enforcement plan for approval to set out the operational objectives of the council’s planning enforcement service.

The Development Team Manager introduced the report and explained that National Guidance had encouraged local planning authorities to publish a Local Enforcement Plan to proactively manage planning enforcement within the district. They had reviewed the current Planning Enforcement Policy and Procedure and established that it was out of date and would be replaced with a Planning Enforcement Operational Protocol. The Development Team Manager highlighted the relevant key points which included:

·       It would enable more regular and more meaningful communication with complainants and developers.

·       It provided detail on how officers would administer, evaluate, and progress planning enforcement complaints.

·       It had been through a rigorous 6-week public consultation period (June – July 2022) which included the development advisory Panel (D-MAP), Town and Parish Councils, District Councillors and then finally discussed again at D-MAP in October.

·       An outline of proposed processes could be found at appendix A on page 92 of the reports pack.

The Development Team Manager concluded and stated that the new Protocol would provide a framework to those who investigated plnanning for both decision making and communication.

The Development Team Manager gave the following answers in response to questions asked:

·       The first step for the planning team would be to implement the Operational Protocol which outlined what the team was aiming to achieve. The second step would be to implement the new IT system and the final step to utilise the new protocol and the IT system to identify whether there was a need for greater resource within the team.

·       Any complaints received from January 2023 would follow the new Operational Protocol and the team would continue to work through the backlog of complaints alongside the new protocol. They had assigned a dedicated person to handle some of the backlog and would be review this once completed. 

·       Officers are looking to integrate older cases into the new system.  Officers have already implemented a last touch date to sort dormant cases by date of last action. Officers are working with the Fit for the Future (FFF) team on new workload reporting tools to manage both new and historic cases.

Councillor Patrick proposed and Councillor Ryder seconded.

Councillors Green and Gray commended the report for being in plain English and easy to understand.

After being put to a vote, the Motion was carried unanimously.

RESOLVED a)  To approve the Planning Enforcement Operational Protocol, for implementation from 01 January 2023

b) To receive an annual update on the implementation of the plan

c) That the plan will be reviewed in 12 months