Wistow cum Newton Harcourt Parish Meeting

The District Council has revised its planning procedures to adopt a more efficient approach and bring the Council in line with other planning authorities.

At a meeting of Full Council held on 30 July 2018, Councillors agreed that from 4 September 2018, the size of Harborough District Council's planning committee will be reduced from 12 Councillors to 9 Councillors. This reflects changes made by the Boundary Commission for England, following public consultation, to reduce the total number of Harborough district councillors at the next election. The planning committee will remain cross-party with the political make up being 7/2 in favour of the ruling party.

Councillors also agreed to changes to the Scheme of Delegation for planning applications. The headline changes are set out below. Any application which was received and valid prior to today (31/7/2018) will continue to be considered under the old Scheme of Delegation, and as such, remains subject to the 7 letter of counter representation trigger to go to Planning Committee. Any application received from today onwards shall be considered under the revised scheme of delegation.

• The following applications can not be called in to Planning Cttee by a Councillor (Advertisement Consents; Prior Notifications and Prior Approvals, hedgerow removal Notices; Tree works applications; High Hedge applications; County Matters applications and Screening and Scoping requests)
• Applications for 25 or more dwellings and for commercial floor space of 10,0002 metres or more
• There is no letter of objection trigger for applications to go to Planning Cttee
• Members of the public can request that a Councillor "call in" an application to be considered by Planning Cttee. To do this, they should first address a Ward Councillor for the area where the application is located. If the Ward Councillor is not available, they should approach an adjoining Ward Councillor, with an approach to the Chair of the Planning Committee being the final option. Any request by a Councillor for an application to be called in to Planning Committee must be informed by sound planning reasons, and as such, it is important that the customer provide adequate information to the Councillor in order to inform their judgement as to whether or not to request a call in to Planning Committee

There are other slight amendments to the Scheme of Delegation, but these do not substantively alter the previous Scheme of Delegation

Finally, Councillors also agreed to amend the Public Speaking arrangements for Planning Committee. As of 4th September Planning Committee, Public Speaking arrangements for Planning Cttee will be amended to the following:

Speakers will be able to address the Planning Committee for up to 3 minutes as a representative of the following

• An objector to a proposal (Maximum of 3 Speakers or the same amount of time as allowed for supporters, whichever is the greater);
• A supporter of a proposal (including the applicant/agent) (Maximum of 3 Speakers or the same amount of time as allowed for objectors, whichever is the greater);
• A representative of the Parish Council / Parish Meeting / Town Council / another body (i.e. Market Harborough Civic Society) within which the site is located;
• A Ward Councillor(s) (maximum of 5 minutes each);

If a member of the public would like to speak at a Planning Committee meeting or present a petition they must request to do so in writing by 12noon not less then 2 working days before the meeting (for example, if the Planning Committee is on a Tuesday and the day before is a bank holiday you must submit your request by 12noon on the previous Thursday). You can email planning@harborough.gov.uk ensuring that your email contains the application number, your name and contact details and an indication of the topic area you wish to discuss. Requests to speak will not be accepted until the date of publication of the relevant Planning Committee agenda and request will be accepted on a first come first served basis. Requests to speak will not be accepted after this deadline.

If more than the allocated number of speakers register to speak, a representative of the relevant group needs to be chosen and nominated to address the Committee on behalf of the group. In order to facilitate this, contact details will need to be provided at the stage of registration. Failure to arrange this beforehand may forfeit the right to speak and speaking slots will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. » Less