Issue - meetings

(Report of the Portfolio Holder for Skills, Planning, Economy & Waste)

Report of the Portfolio Holder for Skills, Planning, Economy & Waste to seek Cabinet approval for the adoption and publication of a new Statement of Community Involvement and Local Development Scheme.

(Report of the Portfolio Holder for Skills, Planning, Economy & Waste)

The Portfolio Holder for Skills, Planning, Economy and Waste introduced the Report in relation to the adoption and publication of a new Statement of Community Involvement and Local Development Scheme for the Committee’s consideration prior to the report being put before Cabinet.

The Committee commented and sought clarifications in the following areas:

1.    Whether the Council would sign up to the plain English campaign as part of this process.  The Portfolio Holder reported that activities to sign up to the Plain English Campaign could be considered separately from this item.

2.    How engagement with the widest public audience could be achieved to ensure that local people had an opportunity to comment on proposals as part of this process and whether it would be possible to directly contact residents living locally to sites identified for major development.  The Planning Policy and Delivery Team Leader reported that the advice of the Communications team would be sought to assist on reaching the widest audience and in terms of directly engaging with residents local to major developments, this would be something to take forward later in the process.

3.    In the planning application process, currently when an item was considered by the Planning Committee there was a maximum of 2 public speakers supporting (including the agent / applicant) and 2 public speakers objecting to an application (in each case a speaker was limited to 3 minutes).  Could consideration be given to increasing the number of speakers to ensure full public engagement? The Portfolio Holder supported the proposal to ensure public participation and had previously identified that the 3 minute duration could be reviewed.

4.    In the Local Development Scheme, there was no explicit reference to joint working with the relevant highway authorities (Staffordshire County Council and Warwickshire County Council) and it was agreed that they would be specifically named.

The Committee considered the recommendations within the report.  Recommendations 1 and 2 were not approved as the comments above were relevant to them.  The Committee raised one further recommendation.

RESOLVED that the Committee recommend to Cabinet

1.    that authority be delegated to the Planning Policy and Delivery Team Leader to make any minor typographical amendments to the documents before or after publication; and

2.    that Cabinet investigate the opportunity of increasing the time and number of speakers at Planning Committee.

(Moved by Councillor R Ford and seconded by Councillor B Price)