Agenda item

This report is presented to the Planning Committee informing Members on current planning performance and the Local Plan.  The report covers the period from 1 October to 31 December 2023.

Discussion:

The Chief Planning Officer, before going through the Performance Report, stated to Members that he understood their frustration on planning in general, however, referred to the housing crisis and the need for more homes and temporary accommodation.  HMOs had an important role to play in that,  however, he was concerned with the expanding use of HMOs utilising prior approvals to do harmful extensions to dwellings and also to provide, in some cases, poor internal amenity.

He also stated that the Government had announced a consultation that would give additional priority to brownfield sites and densification, and while he understood and agreed with the use of brownfield land he was concerned that densification may result in harmful development to the character of an area.    He also stated the Government were in consultation regarding the extension of permitted development rights for housesholds and his team would be carefully considering their responses.

The Committee received a report setting out performance for the period 1 October 2023 - 31 December 2023.

The Chief Planning Officer drew Members’ attention to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) changes that came into force in December 2023 and advised that a member briefing would be organised in due course to go through those changes. 

The Chief Planning Officer explained that although the Planning Service had undergone a restructure and managed to fill a number of posts and retained staff, there were still 1.4 Senior Planner vacancies which could not be filled as the budget for those salaries would have been met through  the Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) which had been withdrawn.  Other vacancies, which he was looking to recruit to in the new financial year, included 1 x Landscape Officer, 1 x Tree Officer and 1 x Derelict Properties Officer and that would leave vacancies for a Planner and Validation Officer. 

The Chief Planning Officer acknowledged that Medway’s Housing Delivery Test figures showed Medway had improved and were now at 79%. This was the first time Medway had achieved more than 75% and that was due to the hard work from Officers and Members in conjunction with developers.

The Chief Planning Officer stated that pre-applications were important in allowing communication and engagement between developers, Officers and Members and improved the quality of development considerably.

The Chief Planning Officer then covered a number of subjects, which included three enforcement notices - one was a breach of condition notice and two were enforcement notices.

There had been an improvement over the last six months regarding tree preservation order (TPO) applications due to a consultant being used to help out with the backlog.  In the new financial year a new tree officer would be recruited to reduce the cost of using the current tree consultant.

A number of compliments had been received and were set out on pages 153 and 154 of the report.

Members were encouraged to see that that 90% of planning applications were being delegated to officers, which allowed the Planning Committee to concentrate on any controversial planning applications.

Members expressed their thanks to the Chief Planning Officer and his team for all their hard work and acknowledged the amount of work that went into producing the results shown.

Decision:

The Committee noted the report and requested that the Chief Planning Officer

express the Committee’s appreciation for the levels of achievement to staff

within the Planning Service.