Issue - meetings

Verbal update by the Executive Member for Planning.

The Executive Member for Planning updated Members on the progress with the recommendations that arose from Overview and Scrutiny Committee (2) and the last Executive with regards to Planning Enforcement.

He advised that:-

Drone trial - would initially contact peers, NAPE (National Association of Planning Enforcement) and the specialist consultancy Ivy Legal. Currently not aware of any Local Planning Authority having in-house drone capacity or that the Council had any sites at the moment where this would help. Members would be updated on this via the Members Newsletter.

Enforcement Policy – a review of the policy was underway – as a result of this some processes would need to be refined to ensure that they align with the policy.

Enforcement Report to Planning Committee – being scoped out with the Chair of Planning Committee to see what over and above the information that Members receive could be provided.

Communication with Town and Parish Council – the development of a Sharepoint site - this would be done along side work to roll out subscriptions/sign on which was anticipated to be after May 2023.

Writing to relevant Government Minister – asked the Business Lead – Development Management what additional powers the Council would like to see to support the delivery a new performance framework. These included fees around Enforcement issues, the issue of substantial costs incurred for any direct action with sometimes not any prospect of recouping costs, a commitment to speed up the appeals process.

Enhancement of the Members enforcement notification report– would be reflected in the report at the end of February.

The Leader commented that there should be clear timelines on the actions to ensure that they did not get lost when the new council was in place after May 2023.