Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Development Management and Building Control Manager.

The Committee received a report on the performance of the Planning Pre-Application Service. The Development Management and Building Control Manager attended the meeting to present an update on the pre-application services since the Committee meeting in February.

The report provided information on the fees charged to various types of applicant from householders wanting to alter a single property to large scale developments. Original targets were set at 7.8% of applications to be submitted for pre-application service with income for the first year of £75,000.

The actual performance of the service to date had been a 10% take-up from all applications and £155,860 total income with one month still remaining before the end of the first year. These figures seemed to show that the service had been a great success and had resulted in a number of benefits to the Council, besides increase revenue, including: better interaction between Council staff across departments; more timely responses to enquiries; and a higher quality of response perceived by applicants.

It was noted that any charging regime should not stifle development and charges needed to be monitored carefully. However, the costs of pre-application service charges in Cheshire East were no more than 0.1% of the total cost of developments.

The Development Management and Building Control Manager had identified three areas were the service could be improved. These improvements were: increased engagement from development with the local community and local councillors; expanding the service to include advice given by other sections of the Council; and increasing the use of Planning Performance Agreements.

The Committee congratulated officers on the performance of the service and were glad that there had been a positive response from developers. The Committee were pleased with the proposals to increase the encouragement of consultation with local councillors and the community and supported the improvements proposed by the Development Management and Building Control Manager.

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the income generated and the positive reaction to the pre-application service be noted.   

(b)  That the Committee support the generation of pre-application consultation standards and the proposal that Council advice letters should not be provided to developers if the Council believes that adequate consultation had not been carried out. 

(c)  That the Committee support proposals to expand the pre-application service to include charging developers for advice given by the Places Directorate that is not currently linked to the pre-application service. 

(d)  That the Committee support proposals to encourage greater use of Planning Performance Agreements on major developments to provide guarantees regarding the timely delivery of applications to Planning Committees which will improve the Council’s performance in relation to major application targets.