Anger in Derby over planning changes

Picture of councillors and officers sitting at a Derby City Council planning meeting. Image by LDRS.

Fuming councillors have called major planning changes coming to Derby “antidemocratic” – but have been told they’ve “got no choice” but to accept them.

New Government-led rules are set to come into force which give more control to council officers on making planning decisions rather than elected councillors across the country.

In future, Derby City Council’s planning committee can only have their say or decide on applications “if they raise a significant economic, social or environmental issue for the local area”.

A planning officer and the chair of the council’s planning committee will decide if an application should be dealt with by an officer or by councillors.

But at a planning meeting on Thursday night (September 3rd) it was heard council officers would have the final say on whether or not a planning application could be decided by councillors.

The Government states the national changes aims to speed up the planning process and prevent “minor applications being delayed unnecessarily by political debate”.

Current rules allow for councillors to “call in” controversial applications for the decision of a planning committee to ensure people’s concerns can be heard democratically. But this is set to be scrapped.

Another rule allowing the planning committee to decide on an application if there have been at least 15 objections submitted will also be put aside from October 31.

Prior to Thursday’s meeting, concerns were raised the changes would give more freedom for developers to “target” areas of Derby without questioning.

At the meeting, Reform Derby councillor John Evans voiced strong concerns.

He said: “It’s like it has been forced upon us. I see it as antidemocratic.

“It is taking powers off local councillors to help their local communities, certainly on smaller developments. If we don’t recommend this, what are the consequences?

“This might be an opportunity to challenge central Government.”

But Cllr Evans was told by the council’s legal officer that they “have no choice” but to go along with them.

Cllr Lucy Care said she was “really unhappy” about the changes and quizzed bosses on who gets the final say on matters.

After the meeting Reform Derby councillor and leader Tim Prosser said: “Council planning officials will have free reign over the majority of applications without any recourse to public scrutiny.

“The applications that councillors will be able to influence are to be tightly controlled by planning officers who will have complete power over us to remove us from the process if they so desire.”

The changes have to be officially ratified through at a future full council meeting because the council’s constitutional rule book must be altered as a result.