Agenda item

S Whelan introduced the report to members.

Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe said the call-in wording was confusing. It makes members think that they are losing a power. It should be rewritten in a more positive way.

S Whelan said this point was to tackle a grey area in the Constitution and will work with the legal department to reword it. Applications are given a 28 day call-in period and if amended plans are submitted, there is a further 14 days consultation. This point is to deal with calling in the amended plans not the original application.

Councillor Matthews asked S Whelan to clarify the call-in process when the recommendation is for refusal.

S Whelan said this was to clarify that requests to call-in an application should be made in writing, not via the phone in the interests of fairness.

Councillor Guest said the ideas in this report are good. Closing the meeting at 10pm ensures a high quality of decision making and meetings every four weeks would be better as some meetings have been cancelled due to a lack of business. Councillor Guest said she was concerned that a sub-committee could decide applications that had no objection but called in by Town and Parish Councils. If the items do not come to the committee, the council could be seen to be hiding something.

Councillor D Collins said that Town and Parish Councils had a legal right to make recommendations and said he did not support the idea of a sub-committee and the applications should still be referred to the Development Control Committee.

S Whelan thanked members for their feedback. She said she had spoken to Mark Brookes today and there was concern that if the sub-committee met every four weeks just to decide Council’s own applications then it could be an over kill. Therefore she suggested a change to the constitution that only major applications or those with objections will be referred to the Development Control Committee. Also, there is no statutory obligation to take council’s own applications to committee.

Councillor Mills said he felt unhappy at putting a time limit on the meetings as it would not be fair to turn the public away if their application had not been heard before 10pm.

Councillor D Collins said he had a contrary view and said it was not fair for the public to have their application reviewed late at night when decision making was potentially of a poorer quality.

Councillor G Sutton said all the recommendations were very sensible and would not damage democracy but will increase it. More people might then become interested in the committee. He said that it should be a two way street, if meetings are being capped at 10pm then officers must be succinct in their presentations. We do not want to restrict members’ time. He said he was happy to refer this report to Council.

Outcome

S Whelan to make the changes suggested by members and Development Control Committee to refer the report to Council.