Planning committees and the call-in process
Planning applications are determined either by one of the three Area Planning Committees, which meet approximately every three weeks, or by officers under powers delegated to them by the council's constitution. Most applications are determined under these delegated powers. The Planning Committees usually only make decisions on planning applications for major developments, those proposals that raise significant public concern, or those 'called in' by a District Councillor.
The call-in process
District Councillors may "call in" applications they feel should go to Committee. If you have serious concerns about an application, you may wish to contact your local councillor about this as soon as you are notified of the application. Call-ins need to submitted to the planning department by the call-in deadline date on the weekly list of applications registered on which the application appears. This is in order that the department has the time to schedule in the application for a committee meeting so that a decision can be made within the statutory eight-week timescale that the department has to determine planning applications (for major applications there is a 13-week timescale).
Call-in forms will state why the application has been called in and whether the application is to be called in if officers are minded to grant or minded to refuse an application. Call-in forms are published on the website along with the plans and other supporting documents.
Once officers have made their assessment of the application, they will then make their recommendation as to whether or not the application should be granted. Whether or not the application goes to Committee will usually depend on both this recommendation and the call-in. For example, if the recommendation is going to be to grant permission and there exists a call-in from a councillor to Committee if the recommendation is to grant, then that application will go to Committee. It is therefore normally only when officers have fully assessed an application and made their recommendation, that we know if an application needs to be heard at Committee. There are cases where there are call-ins from two councillors, one if the recommendation is grant and another if the recommendation is refuse, and these applications will go to Committee.
How to find out if an application is going to Committee
As explained above, it is usually only quite late in the process that we know if an application will go to Committee. It is therefore important that you check the website very frequently. Under the Case Details displayed for each application, you will see a Committee field (which will tell you which Area Committee it will be heard at) and a Committee date field (which gives the date of the Committee). These fields will be updated as soon as we know if an application will be going to Committee.
In addition, you can check the Agendas for each committee to see which applications will be heard (see below for direct links to each area committee). The agendas are published on our website one week prior to the meeting.
Speaking at Committee
There is an opportunity for people to speak at the Planning Committee meetings. One person can speak for and one person can speak against each planning application that goes to a Planning Committee meeting. You can register to speak between 10am and 2.30pm on the day of the meeting by telephoning the Council’s Technical Support team on 01727 819347. Each speaker will have up to 3 minutes to address the Committee. Only persons who have registered to speak at the meeting will normally be allowed to address the Committee.
Planning Committees - Agendas and Minutes
The agendas and minutes of each of the area planning committees can be found by clicking on the individual links below.
The committees are:
Webcasts
We now transmit and record all planning committee meetings held in the Council Chambers. Planning Committee meetings are normally held in the Council Chambers on Monday evenings (except on bank holidays) and start at 7pm - they can be viewed live from our webcast pages.
Please be advised that by entering into the Council Chamber you are giving permission for video (images and sound) to be recorded and transmitted live and as an archive over the internet and by any other means that the council may deem to use; at its discretion; in the future. The webcast will be made available in the public domain for future viewing purposes.
The following meetings are also broadcast live over the internet: Council, Cabinet, Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Public Services) Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Internal Performance).
All meetings are recorded and saved for six months; if you can’t view the live broadcast you can see the archived version (approximately 24 hours after the meeting) from the same webcast pages.
CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE WEBCAST PAGES