Agenda item

Members were asked to consider, note, and endorse the contents of a report ‘Local enforcement plan – planning guidance’. Which had originally been presented and deferred to Planning Committee Members 10 April 2024

Members had requested training and briefing in relation to the Local Enforcement Plan at the Planning Committee meeting held 10 April 2024 which had been delivered, and as detailed within those discussions, Members were informed that the Council had a statutory duty to investigate breaches of planning control although the decision on whether to act was nevertheless discretionary.

Ensuring compliance with planning regulations was also considered to play an important role in safeguarding the policies of the Local Plan and achieving high standards of development across the Borough.

The NPPF (para 59) stated that effective enforcement was important to maintain public confidence and that local planning authorities should consider publishing a local enforcement plan “to manage enforcement proactively, in a way that was appropriate to their area”.

Additionally following last year’s scrutiny review of planning (development management) & adoption of open space, the agreed action plan detailed within the report sought to introduce a local enforcement plan. A draft “Local Enforcement Plan” had been developed and this had previously been shared with the Corporate Management Team who supported the intention to introduce and ‘adopt’ the local enforcement plan.

The local enforcement plan did not have any legal status or formal adoption process, instead it was intended to provide guidance and increased transparency on the authority’s approach to how breaches of planning control would be processed with potential benefits being to help manage customer expectations and improve the overall customer experience.

The main topics discussed were as follows:

- In addition and in order to introduce an element of consistency to the prioritisation of cases, a ‘triage’ system had also been developed allocating a ‘score’ (based on a series of inputs which related to the nature of the case) within the priority rating system (emergency, high and low) which allowed officers to ensure that the most sensitive and urgent cases were investigated as a high priority and were given the appropriate attention.

- The intention was for the Local Enforcement Plan to be introduced 1 November 2024.

- Historical cases would still be investigated; however, this would be outside of the new process.

- A seminar session was to be held for Planning Committee Members and further training on the process would be offered to all Council Members.

- Officers were confident that timescales around ‘triage’ date setting would be achieved in terms of categorising cases by priority.

- Brief discussion took place around how minor breaches would be tackled, for example, where planning consent had been granted but the applicant had breached that consent and had built beyond what had been permitted.

- It was suggested that a quarterly snapshot be brought back to Planning Committee to show what cases had come into the Planning Service and what had been completed. In addition, a 12-month review of the process was also requested.

- Members welcomed the policy.

RESOLVED that Members note and endorse the contents of the Local Enforcement Plan.