The view of a Planning Committee Chair

We are very fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak to a Chair of a Planning Committee and share their insights with us. The Chair elected to remain anonymous for this interview. We thank them for their time and unique insights. 

Henry Lamprecht (HL): What is the single biggest challenge you face as a Planning Committee chair? 

Planning Committee Chair (PCC): The sheer workload! We are in a fairy busy area and when I first joined the Committee when I was an opposition member we used to meet once a month and some months the committee didn’t even meet because there wasn’t enough on the agenda. That has changed so much that as of last year September, our committee now meets twice a month with packed agendas. 

The knock-on effect of this is that we have to assess a vast number of applications and just to read the agenda pack takes me days. I have a job, I have to do case work for my residents, I also serve on a scrutiny committee where I need to read the papers, I sit on a working group that requires work, I need to read the full council papers, I have a partner and kids, an elderly mother and a dog that needs walking (and sometimes I think the dog is the sanest one of the lot!). I could be full-time Planning Chair, but I have other things that require my attention. 

HL: I can sympathise and the planning agenda is a very technical document, how do you keep on top of all the policies and apply it to the applications? 

PCC: I made a nice spreadsheet with all the most important policies summarised, both from the NPPF and our local policies and then I have both sets printed out and on my desk. You also have to remember that I only just got my head around the December 2024 NPPF when it was replaced with the December 2025 NPPF and both introduced significant changes. 

I am very fortunate that I actually did some Law at University, so I can work my way around the policies but many of my colleagues do find it very difficult to just understand the polices – let alone interpret them. If you then add in the constant changes, you can see why some Councillors go “sod this, I am going to make it up as I go along” and it is my job to curtail those views when they come up in Planning Committee meetings. 

HL: Speaking of your Committee, what is the biggest challenge you face with the members? 

PCC: Where do I start? I can give you the true answer but then I want to stay anonymous, or I can give you a politically correct answer and you can publish my name. [We opted for anonymous and a true answer – Ed.]

My committee I char has nine members and I very regularly sit there, and you can hear very quickly that not a single one of them has read the papers. I can see them desperately hanging on the lips of the officers to understand what they are supposed to make a decision about. Then invariably you get someone from the applicant droning on with technical jargon for five minutes [some councils allow only three minutes – Ed.] and worse, use the time to threaten the Committee with an appeal – something that really winds up my members. This is then followed up by angry residents standing up and threatening not to vote for them if they allow the application to go ahead. 

There has been a huge increase in these sorts of applications where it all becomes very heated and members are bullied into voting against applications due to the voters threatening to throw them out. We even recently had a resident who reminded us that they voted the previous Tory administration out because of planning and we’re heading the same way. I of course immediately shut him up but he had said it, the committee had heard it and sadly I don’t have Dr Who’s sonic screwdriver to wipe their minds. 

HL: What can be done to improve this and do you think the changes in the Planning and infrastructure Act with smaller and trained committees will improve this? 

PCC: Good question! The reality is that you can’t take democracy out of the Planning system. I think you made that very point in one of your articles. There is no future Government that will get away with abolishing the democratic side of planning. Committees are here to stay so the only option is to try and improve them.  

The new Act says the small applications [under 10 units] shouldn’t come to the Committee but to be honest with you, I have very sensible officers and those applications didn’t really come to the committee in any case. The bigger ones should still come and we are now seeing anything between three and seven larger applications at our committee every two weeks. 

As for the training and certificates, I don’t know if you know [no, we don’t -Ed.] what will be in it, who will be doing the training or what form the exams will take to get the certificate and it very much depends on that. If the training isn’t up to scratch, it won’t make anything better. 

As for the smaller committees, I welcome that. I do sometimes get the impression that some of the members take part in the debate just to say something to justify they are there and can get their allowance (you really must promise me not to print my name!). They don’t actually contribute anything and they haven’t read their papers and they don’t understand planning policies. 

The flip-side of that is that the smaller Committees would work a lot harder, as I explained to you, our workload has increased a lot and the reality is that if you are on the Planning Committee post reforms, you probably won’t have the capacity to serve on any other committees.  

HL: Do you think Committees pay attention to the consequences of their decisions? For example, if they turn down an application on subjective grounds like design due to the pressure of voters, and there is an absence of any material grounds the inspectors quite often grant permission and award costs against the Council. 

PCC: The honest answer is that the average Planning Committee member pays no attention to that. It is something that happens “outside” (in inverted commas) of the Planning Committee. Certainly when I took over as Planning Committee Chair two-and-a-half years ago, no one ever mentioned it. We were presented with the reports on overturned decisions but there were never any costs attached to it. I then asked officers to start adding the costs to these and my Committee was shocked and outraged.

It has focussed their minds a little bit but politics still weigh more on their minds. At our last Committee meeting and application went down again against officers recommendation because the members were scared by the angry residents. As chair it is my duty to steer them towards the logical outcome but ultimately, planning is not whipped, so there is very little a chair can do sometimes other than remind them that the application complies with policy and the law. 

HL: What in your view would help to calm the residents in a world of ever increasing numbers of applications and help your Committee to make sensible and logical decisions? 

PCC: Well, that is the million pound question, isn’t it? I think the biggest problem is that our residents doesn’t see the benefits of the development. Many developers come in with technically sound proposals that comply with policy but they haven’t done anything to win over the hearts and minds of the locals. They then don’t understand why the public is up in arms when they have promised a million pounds for infrastructure under S106 but the numbers are so bit and so abstract that no-one understands or comprehends it. 

I will give you an example, the application that I mentioned earlier that went down at the last Committee had £450,000 earmarked for education. The residents who came and objected raised a very serious concern about the lack of local school places. The applicant and officers could tell us that there was £450k for education but what does that actually mean? Is it an expansion to a school to create more places? Is it improvements to buildings? How much do you actually get for £450k? Is it a lot? Isn’t it a lot? The public just didn’t really know and when they asked the question, they were not given a solution that would have a practical improvement they were just given a bland answer saying “this complies with policy”. Well, the reality is that kids don’t go to school in policy compliance, they go to school in buildings with teachers in them. 

But to come back to your question, proper public consultation and I don’t mean getting 30 people to drop in at the Village Hall to show them the ready formulated plans and then somehow expecting them to support you. I mean genuinely finding out what locals need and responding to that and then going out to them and educating them about how you are going to make the place where they live even better than it already is. People are quite rightly scared of development sometimes when the plans doesn’t actually address their concerns and simply tell them what I best for them. We live here, we know what we need so don’t come in and tell us what you think we need! Make the effort. 

Once you know what that is, you can convince the Planning Committee that your application will make the area even better and that helps me as the Chair of the Committee to steer the debate. Yes, the residents may be a little grumpy but we are getting something they need that we otherwise won’t be able to get! 

HL: Finally, if there is one thing you could change about the Planning System, what would it be? 

PCC: I would make consultation with residents compulsory for all developers and I am not just saying that because I am talking to you and I know the excellent work you and your colleagues at the CCP is doing, I really do mean it. If a planning application reflects the local need, and the locals know the benefits and that is then effectively communicated to the Planning Committee so that everyone understands the benefits of the development and had their say early on when the plans are still being made, it would ensure that all planning applications are actually granted permission if it complies with policy. I know it would make my life as a Chair much easier! 

The reality is that even with the certified training and smaller Committees, the vast majority of applications will still come to the Planning Committees and unless you make the effort of getting the locals and the Committee on side, this cycle of planning by appeal will simply continue. Now, I don’t know about private developers and how rich they are, but I know that at the Council we don’t have the sort of money to spend on expensive barristers but at the same time, we also have a democratic duty to represent the views of our residents.