Bid to make planning fairer blocked by councillors

Democratic Independent councillor and Green Party MSP candidate Martin
Ford has again pressed Aberdeenshire Council to improve its decision
making process for planning applications.

At last week's full council meeting (Thursday, 10 March), Cllr Ford
sought to amend aspects of the procedures used by the Council to
decide on whether a planning application will be determined by
officers or the local Area Committee, and to adjust the rules
governing the making of representations.

These issues were considered under item 6 on the full council
meeting's agenda, 'Review of Operation of Scheme of Delegation and
List of Powers Delegated to Officers - Infrastructure Services'. (see
Note 1)

This paper set out the findings of a review of the operation of new
procedures for planning applications introduced in 2009.

Cllr Ford moved to amend the procedures to give more time for people
to make representations on major planning applications and to make it
easier to enable applications to be referred to the Area Committee for
decision.

Cllr Ford said: "The changes I proposed had the aim of ensuring that
all letters of representation counted equally towards triggering a
planning application being referred to the Area Committee for
determination. I also proposed to make it more possible for local
councillors to have a planning application referred to the Area
Committee when they thought that was necessary.

"The procedural changes introduced in 2009 reduced the time period for
making representations on planning applications to 21 days. The aim
was to speed up decision making, but it did mean some people lost the
opportunity to submit their views or objections for consideration. But
larger applications are really never decided anything like that
quickly, so, for major applications, limiting the time for people to
put in letters of representation to 21 days does not speed up decision
making, but it does mean some people miss out on having their views
taken into account. Accordingly, I asked the Council to agree that for
major applications the time period for receiving letters of
representation be lengthened by one week to 28 days.

"None of the alterations I put forward to the Council's procedures was
a major change. Together, they had the effect of making it easier for
people to have their say on planning applications and increased the
opportunities for public involvement in the decision making process."

Cllr Ford's proposals were blocked by Liberal Democrat, Conservative
and SNP councillors who voted to leave procedures unchanged.

Cllr Ford said: "The Council has missed an opportunity to make it
easier for people to have their views heard."

ENDS

Contact: Cllr Martin Ford 01224 790052

Notes

1. The paper is here:
http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees/files_meta/802572870061668E8025784700518287/(6)%20Review%20of%20Scheme%20of%20Delegation.pdf