Councillor, do you know your own planning policies?

A friend told me a very funny story the other day. He was doing a presentation to a group of Councillors, and his opening slide was a summary of the Council’s planning policies. Not the NPPF, not the planning guidance that came from Government… THEIR OWN POLICIES and one of the senior Councillors exploded about the “latest rubbish the Government is forcing down their throats”. The Leader of the Council then had to remind this Councillor that it was actually their OWN planning policies that they, as a Council formulated and formally adopted… at full Council… and he voted in favour of it at the time. 

Then earlier this week one of our clients had an application pulled from the Planning Committee agenda because the Chair of the Planning Committee and one of the Ward Councillors had an issue with one of their own policies. Just for clarity, the application is FULLY COMPLIANT with the policy, they just discovered that they don’t like THEIR OWN policy and then kicked up a stink. Now they are delaying the delivery of homes (yet again) because they “want more information”. This, by the way, is a Council that doesn’t have an up-to-date Local Plan and their 5YHLS is just over a year. 

This of course takes us all back to the Planning and Infrastructure Act that was given Royal Assent on 18 December 2025. The act sets out a whole list of very good things like mandatory training for Planning Committee members that will be accredited and their certificates needs to be displayed on the Council website (unfortunately, the details on the syllabus and the accreditation is still vague). 

I am not unsympathetic, planning and serving on a Planning Committee is a legal function of the Council and the law can be quite difficult to understand if you aren’t a trained lawyer. But by the same token, if you are a Councillor you really should have a firm grasp on the NPPF and equally important, understand your OWN planning policies (or at the very least be vaguely aware of them!). 

This is where things can get so terribly muddled. If you are a Councillor and you serve on the Planning Committee and you don’t know the legal parameters of your powers, then you are bound to end up on a sticky wicket. This is then where you “make a decision” that can be challenged and could cost your Council a lot of money. Money that should be spent on essential services like fixing potholes etc. 

Equally, if you are an applicant, don’t submit a “Swiss Cheese” application that is full of technical holes (no, you can’t submit it without all the bits) and then be surprised when you get a delegated refusal… and this is going to happen more as the new Planning and Infrastructure Act has an objective to speed up the planning process. And one way it will speed things up is to throw out the “Swiss Cheese” applications. Your friendly Planning Officer is not there to do your application – they are there to determine it! 

Until next week,

Henry