An editor has called for all council planning decisions to be held in public after his newspaper revealed 97pc of applications on its patch were agreed behind closed doors.
Andy Rush, of the Loughborough Echo, has hit out at Charnwood Borough Council over its policy after revealing just 40 planning applications, out of a total of 1,294, had been decided in public over a period of 12 months.
The rest of the applications were decided in private by council officers with delegated powers, with the council claiming it would cost an estimated £389,700, 10 times the present amount, to hold all planning meetings in public.
However, in an editorial on the subject, Andy described the estimate as “at best, baloney”.
Andy, pictured above left, wrote: “Planning is possibly the most contentious of all the duties local authorities carry out. Many times through the years people have contacted us accusing various people of back-handers and of being in a developer’s pocket etc.
“I’m sure that planning officers are honest upright citizens – but the process which sees decisions made in private leaves them more vulnerable to such accusations.
“Yes, the applications are made known to the public beforehand. Yes, the decisions are made public. But that is after the fact. It is the bit in between which makes the difference. That’s the bit that leaves officers open to accusations. And the borough should protect its officers.
“It is the role of the elected councillors to be publicly accountable for such decisions. And that is why all applications should be decided in public by the planning committee. It is nonsense to say it would need 10 meetings a month.”
The authority’s estimate factored in that every application which came to the committee would involve a site meeting, but when this was queried by the Echo the council responded that it was a “hypothetical situation”.
Andy added: “There are around 50 applications registered per week. Two monthly meetings would suffice.
“Many of the ‘smaller’ applications are almost box-ticking. But box-ticking in public is a very different thing to box-ticking behind closed doors. It can be done with strong chairmanship and a disciplined planning committee.”
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Good on Andy for raising this, but I do wonder how much any newspaper would really benefit from all the applications being dealt with in public. A lot of the applications (but I accept not all) that are approved outside of planning meetings are very minor and warrant nothing more than a paragraph, while in my experience planning meetings can be very long as it is without adding in numerous applications for new conservatories etc.
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This, I don’t want to have to sit through 42 conservatories and replacement UPCV windows in order to get to the applications that are in public interest.
The last planning meeting I went to (last week) had 5 items on it and lasted three hours.
The decisions for reserved matters applications are all published by our council the same week as they are taken.
Also I believe that any application that receives a genuine objection has to be heard by the planning committee
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what world is this editor living in? Yes, I agree with with him in principal but the majority of applications and the like concern minor features such as conservatories etc. He must also have a large enough staff to send out to such meetings or has he escaped the cuts affecting the industry.
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Wordsmith,
Andy is one of the best editors in the business.
His finger has been on the pulse of the Loughborough community for many years, and I suspect he goes to the planning meetings himself – in his own time.
DP
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