Issue - meetings

To receive an oral update from the Chair of the Member Advisory Panel.

Councillor Tony Dean, Chair of the Member Advisory Panel for Planning updated the Committee on progress to date.  The Deep-Dive Planning report was now scheduled for a special committee date in October, delays had occurred due to the numbers of people who needed to be consulted.

The report has already seen effective change and the backlog of applications was reducing. 

RESOLVED:

That the update be received and noted.

To receive an oral update from the Chair of the Member Advisory Panel.

Councillor Tony Dean gave a verbal update to the Committee.

The Member Advisory Panel had not met since the last meeting, although this was intentional because Jayne Traverse, Executive Director of Place had requested for meetings to be every other month which had been agreed to.

Progress had been ongoing, a video had been launched as part of the ongoing recruitment campaign, this has been effective as there were 79 applications.  However there had been no applications for the Senior planner role. 

The Phase One report was scheduled for the September Committee, this related to the  planning backlog and perceived lack of enforcement.

The Committee noted this was to be added to the Work Programme.

It was noted that the lack of applications for the senior position could be a requirement for a head-hunter.

RESOLVED:

That the verbal update be received and noted.

To receive an oral update from the Chair of the Member Advisory Panel.

Councillor Tony Dean, the Chair of the Member Advisory Panel for Planning (MAPP), gave the Committee an update on the work to date.

Following serious concerns from Councillors and the public with respect to the Cheshire East Planning dept and the notably large backlog of applications and lack of planning enforcement, Jayne Traverse, Executive Director of Place, had undertaken a deep-dive review of the department and the MAPP had been meeting with her regularly to scrutinise progress.

Councillor Dean advised that the review had been a fair, open and inclusive process, generating over 300 comments and correspondence, 25 sessions with Planning teams and listening to staff, Brighter Futures workshops, gathering and analysing, complaints, FOIs, in-depth reviews, peer reviews, and considered the life of a planning application and new proposed ICT system.  Councillor Dean noted that Cheshire East was the busiest local authority in Northwest, and in the top five within the country and top ten in terms of volume.  It was noted that there was a national difficulty in recruiting experienced planners. 

Progressed had been made in terms of the 2022 budget and the council having set aside £0.5million to the planning department and the staffing resource was being met temporarily via an agency to help with back log whilst the Council worked towards driving a recruitment campaign. 

The Committee was given the opportunity to ask questions and discussed the possibility of encouraging/fast tracking planning applications that had benefit to carbon goals and the UK 100 Pledge.

Peter Hooley, Planning and Enforcement Manager advised the Committee that applications were prioritised into large and small scale.  Major schemes were not in a queue and were allocated immediately to officers, but the nature of the scheme will take longer.  The planning backlog would not affect those schemes to the same extent.  Some schemes had an environmental or public service angle, such as hospitals and for these officers would take a pragmatic approach to prioritisation.  All applications had social, economic or environmental angles.

RESOLVED:

That Councillor Tony Dean and the Planning and Enforcement Manager be thanked for their attendance and update to the Committee.