Agenda item

A report from the Monitoring Officer is attached.

The Chairman invited Councillor Richard Clewer, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Heritage, Arts, Tourism, Housing and Environment, to introduce the report.

The proposal was to make a series of changes to Protocol 4 of the Constitution, the Planning Code of Good Practice. The changes proposed a series of additional clarifications on the planning process and member involvement, including the sections on bias and predetermination, declaration of interests, training being mandatory and site visit procedures.

All proposals had been reviewed by the Constitution Focus Group, which had invited all planning committee chairmen and the relevant Cabinet Member to discuss the protocol, and the proposals had been approved for recommendation by the Standards Committee.

The recommendation was there moved by Councillor Clewer and seconded by Councillor Paul Oatway QPM, Chairman of the Standards Committee.

Group Leaders were then invited to comment before Members debated the proposal.

An amendment was moved by Councillor Alan Hill, seconded by Councillor Bridget Wayman, to Paragraph 11 of the meeting procedure and public speaking as follows:

The unitary division member for the application will then be invited to make a representation for up to five minutes at Chairman’s discretion.

Members then debated the amendment. It was raised that there would be occasions that more than five minutes was necessary for a local member to detail all the issues that were relevant to an application, which might be complex and of significant concern. It was stated exceeding five minutes was a rare occurrence, but that the response should not be curtailed if it was necessary to expand on all relevant points. A comment was made in objection to the amendment that five minutes was sufficient for concise explanation of an application’s issues.

At the conclusion of debate on the amendment, it was approved as follows:

Votes in favour of amendment      (74)

Votes against amendment            (6)

Votes in abstention                      (2)

The members then debated the substantive motion. Issues raised included wording on withdrawal by Members in their capacity as a member of a committee in the event they had a pecuniary interest A comment was also received welcoming changes made as a result of the Planning Committee Systems Task Group recommendations. In response to comments on requiring frequent training, it was stated that planning rules were not static and Members on committees would need to demonstrate they were aware of latest rules and regulations should decisions be challenged. There were also comments on the deadlines on how Members could request call-in of applications.

Many concerns were raised regarding issues around call-in by Members, and in particular a section regarding a call-in request being made by one Member against the wishes of the local Member, to be determined by the Head of Development Management. Other comments stated the protocol was not intended to diminish Member’s requests for call-in, but that such call-in requests were required to at least one planning reason, which was not felt to be a high barrier, as any potential refusal would need to be justified with a planning reason. Others were concerned the existing wording placed restrictions on Members requesting call-in of matters of great significance to their communities.

As a result of the raised points, the substantive motion was withdrawn and it was moved by Councillor Oatway, seconded by Councillor Jon Hubbard, to refer the Protocol 4 to the Standards Committee for additional consideration.

At the conclusion of debate, it was,

Resolved:

To refer Protocol 4 to the Standards Committee for additional consideration.