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Lewes and Eastbourne
Councils

Agenda item

Summary of Performance of Planning Services - Quarter 1 (April - June 2014).

Report of Senior Specialist Advisor (Planning).

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the Senior Specialist Advisor (Planning) which provided a summary of performance in relation to key areas of the Development Management Services for the first quarter (April – June) 2014.

 

Given the many varied types of planning application received Central Government required that all Councils report the performance in a consistent and coherent manner. Therefore the many varied applications were grouped together into three broad categories Major, Minor and Others.  Applications falling into each category were outlined within the report.

 

In analysing the performance for the processing of these differing types of application the Government allow 13 weeks for the processing Major applications and 8 weeks for processing the Minor and Other categories.  The figures detailed within the report highlighted the development control performance figures against these categories for the calendar year 2013 and the first quarter of 2014 (April – June).

In addition the report also included information about the recent appeal decisions.  Members were requested to note that any decision made to refuse an application opened the potential for an appeal by the applicant to the Planning Inspectorate.

As members were aware the majority of the applications received were granted planning permission, however for those that were refused and challenged through to an appeal it was considered important to analyse the appeal decisions in order to determine and evaluate whether lessons needed to be learnt, or interpretations needed to be given different weight at the decision making stage.  In addition the evaluation of the appeal decisions would also go some way to indicate the robustness and the correct application of the current and emerging policy context at both a local and national level.

 

Members were reminded that along with all Councils performance had to be reported to Central Government and where authorities were deemed to be underperforming then they would be placed in ‘special measures’.  There were two criterions against which Councils would be assessed.  It was therefore important to keep abreast of all decisions with regard to maintaining performance above the ‘special measure’ thresholds as detailed within the report.


Officers considered that in granting planning permission for 94% of all application received, planning services of Eastbourne Borough Council had supported/stimulated the local economy and had also helped to meet the aspirations of the applicants.  Only where there were substantive material planning considerations was an application refused.

The assessment of the performance of planning services showed that the team were performing at or over the National PI threshold and that there were at this time special measure issues.   Eastbourne may not trigger the special measures threshold for Government intervention due to the number of major applications received. Notwithstanding this for the first six months of 2014 Eastbourne had one major application going through to an appeal decision and this was overturned resulting in 100% of cases being overturned.

 

With regards to appeals, all applications that were refused had to the potential to be appealed by the applicant. The Council for the first 6 months of the calendar year (up until the end of June) had received 7 appeals; some of these appeals had not yet been decided, but all appeals that had been received were evaluated within the report.

 

Appendix 1 to the report included further application data by ward and also the number /type of pre application requests received.

 

Councillor Jenkins requested a further breakdown of the decisions with specific reference to the level of decision (Delegated/Planning Committee) and further analysis of refused applications at Planning Committee.  It was confirmed this would be included in the next performance report.

 

NOTED.

 

Supporting documents: