Cabinet Report |
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Report of Head of Planning Author: Emma Turner E-mail: emma.turner@southandvale.gov.uk Wards affected: All |
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Cabinet member responsible: Bethia Thomas Tel: 07906821680 E-mail: Bethia.thomas@southandvale.gov.uk Date: 3 December 2021 |
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3. The investigation and actions to mitigate planning harm supports the Corporate Plan, 2020 - 2024, themes of ‘Providing the Homes People Need” and “Building Healthy Communities”.
4. Central Government sets out national planning policy in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). At paragraph 59 of the NPPF it states that local planning authorities ‘should consider publishing a local enforcement plan to manage enforcement proactively, in a way that is appropriate to their area’.
6. In spring 2021 the enforcement team went through a thorough review of the function and the team are working through the resulting action plan. Updating the Enforcement Statement has been identified as an important step in helping the team to become more efficient and effective. The updated document aims to communicate more clearly the enforcement teams’ role within the wider planning service and the public and town/parish councils’ role as informants in the process. The enforcement teams’ role is to maintain the integrity of the planning system and planning decisions made by the councils. They therefore investigate allegations for the councils not for residents. It is also important to recognise that in the first instance, the objective of planning enforcement is not to punish those who are in breach of planning but to remedy the planning harm caused by the planning breach. The councils also do not ‘police’ new development.
7. As part of the function review, an assessment has been undertaken on the triage and prioritising of cases, and the amount of time spent on issues that have little impact and considered not to cause unacceptable planning harm.
8. Historically when the council considered an alleged breach of planning, the case was not closed until the site had been visited and the breach of planning remedied. This resulted in the enforcement team continuing to use resources to pursue minor breaches of planning that were not causing harm to public amenity and/or interest.
9. The proposed risk-based approach (harm assessment) will use a set of scored planning criteria to rate the impact a planning breach is having and if it doesn’t reach the threshold set it will be closed as not expedient to pursue and the informant advised of the outcome. Only cases that are considered to have the potential for planning harm will be allocated to an officer for a site visit and further investigation.
10. This new method will allow officers to filter out a number of cases and be able to spend more time on investigations where there is more potential for unacceptable planning harm and need for formal action. It is also expected that this approach will help reduce the backlog of cases and once completed, the capacity to act more proactively e.g. dealing with major development sites.
11. As part of reviewing the statement, we have engaged with all councillors and sought their comments.
12. Officers produced a narrated presentation about the statement and its new approach, including the harm assessment and priorities. The presentation also includes some context about planning enforcement.
13. A councillor Q&A session was held on 23rd November which was well attended. Comments and feedback centred around GDPR and communication with town/parish Councils and the wider public. It was suggested that officers put a package of information together for town/parish councils to help them understand the new approach. Similarly, to ensure there is information on the council’s website to help explain the revised approach to our residents.
14. We have not sought public engagement on the revised enforcement statement as it would not be meaningful consultation. This is because the enforcement function is limited by regulations, appeal and court outcomes and the agreed resources.
15. Cabinet can approve the statement or to reject the statement and continue with the current approach. However, we should review our statement on a regular basis.
Appendix 1; Draft Enforcement Statement 2021.