Agenda item

Philip Stanley was happy to take questions based on the report.

He wanted to share that there are resource issues currently due to the Assistant Team Leader Olivia Stapleford leaving.

They have struggled to fill the post despite advertising three times. They had employed a contractor however he is also leaving.

The team were meant to have an additional team member to reduce the case load down however an existing team member left so that 1 year placement backfilled that role.

This makes it difficult to process any of the cases within the report.

The DMC committee wished Julian Thomas well in his future career.

Cllr Beauchamp asked for an update on behalf of Cllr Allen regarding 55-59 St Johns road, these were DBC properties.

Phil Stanley confirmed he did have an update that he would share with the committee and wider members via email after this meeting.

A.P – Philip Stanley to share the update.

Cllr Tindall referred to the shortage of Enforcement officers, is this the same with other neighbouring authorities, he asked if there was scope to collaboration to overcome the issue of staffing shortages.

Philip Stanley confirmed that not just in enforcement but planning in general there is a shortage of experienced officers. He said that they were fortunate that they have excellent investigative officers, the issue they are finding is that when an issue required formal action they need to serve the enforcement notice, this is where they require the experience to make sure that the notices are drafted correctly and served correctly so it can be defended properly. Neighbouring authorities would not have the capacity to support them with those types of things.

What they were doing is sharing the formal work across the team on an interim basis, some cases are time critical, and if they did not serve the notice it could become lawful through the passage of time. They will serve notices where appropriate however they do not have the capacity to follow up on all cases as they would like.

Cllr Hollinghurst referred to item 10 Lila’s Wood on the report, he asked what the relationship between all the back applications, appeals and enforcement notices with the current appeal. He said that this was possibly in its 7^th year and wondered if they could say to the inspector that the applicant is deliberately abusing the appeal process.

Philip Stanley said that he wasn’t up to speed with all the latest information however not just in this case but with several other enforcement cases that the applicant will submit amendments to schemes rather than comply with a Notice. He said he would need to come back to Cllr Hollinghurst with a full response to the exact nature of this application and how it differs from previous applications. They do as a department have the right to refuse to validate such applications, this one was validated, and it was considered and was now going through the appeal route, this means they cannot take any further enforcement action at this time until the appeal has been determined.