Agenda item

The Committee considered the third monitoring report on planning appeals, which focused on ‘overturn’ appeals data and ‘costs’ data for 2018, compared with 2019, 2020 and (up to November) 2021.

The report had suggested that, in future, the focus should be on appeal decisions covering the previous two calendar years which would allow a greater focus on the analysis of the decisions presented, and attention was drawn to the number of Planning Committee decisions in 2020, which was lower than other years due to the cancellation of several meetings as a result of the national Covid lockdown measures in place.  The overall number of appeal decisions had also been lower in 2021 in part due to the same reasons.

Officers had attached commentary to each year's report which looked at the proportion of appeals allowed in respect of member overturn decisions and overall appeal performance.  The report noted that there was a consistent trend regarding the number of appeals being allowed in respect of Planning Committee decisions being considerably higher than overall appeal decisions. 

The report had also included details of the range of costs associated with defending appeals together with the key risks and financial implications.  The report had recommended that, in future, this monitoring report be presented annually to the Committee as the timing of appeal decisions meant that twice yearly reporting did not present sufficient data to establish a trend or meaningful update.

The Lead Councillor for Development Management commented on the opportunity cost associated with officers working on defending planning appeals which meant that officers could not work on other planning applications.

During the debate, the following points were raised:

·         In response to concerns over the veracity of information provided in the report, the Committee noted that the information contained both the appeal outcomes generally (i.e. the outcome of all planning appeals) and specifically the outcome of appeals in respect of committee overturns.

·         In response to concerns regarding use of the full resources of the Council in respect of appeals against Planning Committee overturns, the Interim Head of Place confirmed that all appeals are robustly defended to the best of officers’ ability, irrespective of the decision-maker.

·         Where an overturn is contemplated by the Planning Committee, discussion as to likely outcome of an appeal should be avoided, or at least discussed using neutral language.

·       The importance of the need for ongoing training for Planning Committee members was again emphasised, particularly with a view to improving the quality of decision making to enable councillors to reach their own conclusions on the planning merits of individual applications.

·       In response to a concern over the number of appeals in respect of the non-determination of planning applications by the Council and a request for a moratorium on acceptance of applications, the Committee noted that the volume of applications that the Planning team was currently working on had almost doubled compared to the levels at the beginning of the pandemic.  This had led to the Council having to use agency staff to deal with the backlog of work. It was also noted that the decision-making framework for dealing with non-determination applications followed the same pattern as a normal application in that the matter would still be referred to the Committee for an indication as to whether, had the Committee been in a position to determine, the application would have been approved or refused.  The Committee also noted that the Council had no powers to prevent applications being submitted to the Council or to refuse to accept them.

·       There was little difference in financial liability to the Council between applications allowed on appeal which had been determined by the Council and those which had been allowed on appeal following a failure by the Council to determine the application.

·       Request for details of all appeal cost decisions for 2019, which was not shown in the report

·       It was noted that in relation to budget provision for appeals, which had been relatively low and exceeded regularly, officers would be examining whether this budget was set at the appropriate level and would be looking at other authorities’ approach to appeals budgets.

·       Future reports to provide more analysis over the reasons behind decisions made

In considering whether the report should be presented annually, the Committee requested that the six-monthly reports should continue.

Having considered the report, and noted the corrections on the Supplementary Information sheet, the Committee

RESOLVED: That the contents of the update report and data be noted.

Reason:

To enable the Committee to monitor the Council’s performance on planning appeals.