New rules could mean fewer housing plans decided by councillors

By Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Mumby with additional reporting by Frome Times

Fewer decisions on major housing plans could be taken by councillors after October following changes in UK planning law.

The Labour government has been making numerous changes to national planning policy as part of its pledge to deliver 1.5 million homes by the end of the current parliament.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) announced in early-June that it would be making changes to the ‘national scheme of delegation’ – a set of rules which governs which planning applications can come to public committee meetings.

These changes come into effect in Somerset on 31st October and may make it harder for large developments to be decided in public, especially where outline planning permission is already in place.

Housing developers currently have two different paths for securing planning permission for a housing development: they can submit a full application (which covers every detail in one go), or they can submit an outline application (which normally only agrees the access arrangements) followed by a reserved matters application (which handles the detailed design and layout of the homes).

The current system allows full, outline and reserved matters plans to be referred to the relevant planning committee if the two division members and the committee chair agree.

Under the new scheme of delegation, major outline plans will still come before committees.

Likewise, reserved matters plans for any development of 500 homes or more can still come before committees – as well as developments where councillors and officers have agreed that all applications will be decided in public.

However, reserved matters applications for any development under 500 houses will usually be decided by officers unless the appointed planning officer, local councillors and the committee chair agree to bring it to committee.

Frome Town Council discussed the changes at its Full Council meeting on 8th July. While the town council does not determine planning applications, it is consulted on proposals and can submit comments, with decisions made by Somerset Council.

Chair of Frome’s planning committee Cllr Steve Tanner said the new regulations were the government’s way of ‘treading over democracy.’

He said, “The government have committed to building a million and a half houses and this is basically an instrument for them to push through those applications as quickly as they can.”