To consider the above report

Members considered a review of the Development Management Committee structure.

 

Adrien Waite, Head of Planning, explained that the review followed a report in June 2021 that had recommended a return to two Committees, but had also highlighted concerns about resourcing and consistency of decision-making. The Member resolution at the time requested a review back to Council by June 2022. Over the review period, there had been 18 scheduled meetings; two of which were cancelled due to a lack of business and six convened to discuss just one item. The Head of Planning therefore stated that the committee business could be handled with fewer meetings, with no detrimental impact on decision-making. This would also free up resources to be used elsewhere. A single committee also minimised risks around decision-making. The Corporate Plan highlighted the importance of the most efficient use of resources and the proposal supported other objectives in the plan as it would free up resources to work on meeting targets.

 

Councillor Haseler commented that, as Members had heard from Mr Waite, the Member resolution following the debate the previous year was to operate with two committees but also requested the Head of Planning to bring a report reviewing these arrangements back to full Council.

 

Following the operation of two committees it was clear this was having a significant impact on Planning, Democratic Services and Legal Officers and was not an efficient use of Council resources. Councillor Haseler commented that during the period that he had chaired the single committee, his experience was that it had worked incredibly well. The committee comprising of Members from across the borough made defensible determinations based on material planning considerations, taking into account information gleaned from the officers’ report, statutory consultees, public speakers, ward members, parish councillors, site visits, the debate during the planning meeting, planning officers present at the meeting and advice from the legal officer when appropriate. Decisions made by the single committee were consistent and defensible.

 

Members, when sitting on the planning committee, represented the local planning authority, not their ward, village or town. They were duty bound to make defensible decisions based on material planning considerations. There was no evidence to suggest a single committee comprising Members from across the borough were incapable of making sound planning decisions for an application outside their ward, village or town.

 

Councillor Haseler suggested Members consider a number of points:

 

·       Cookham to Waltham St Lawrence was 9 miles; both locations were covered by the Maidenhead committee

·       Cox Green to Clewer was 8 miles; Clewer was covered by the Windsor committee

·       Ascot to Clewer was roughly the same distance and both locations were covered by the Windsor committee.

 

Councillor Haseler stated that he could not see the difference between a Cookham Member determining an application in Waltham St Lawrence versus a Clewer Member determining an application in Cox Green. He did recognise the optics to residents when a Member from another area was involved in the decision making of a local application. However, he did not believe that was justification for dismissing a single planning committee. It was worth remembering that when a planning application went to appeal, it was highly likely the planning inspector considering the appeal would not possess any local knowledge.

 

Councillor Hilton seconded the motion.

 

Councillor Walters stated that he could not agree with the proposal. There had always been two panels split Maidenhead/Windsor and the structure worked perfectly well. A borough-wide panel had been introduced under the previous administration which hardly ever met and on the one occasion it did, had made an enormous mistake. Councillor Walters stated that the all-important thing was knowledge of the area, potentially even knowing the individuals involved. A Member would be more ‘interested’ in an application in their own area because they had local knowledge The influence of the parish council was also a factor. The amount of work for two panels was not all that much different to one panel and two panels reflected what residents wanted.

 

Councillor Cannon commented that he had been Chairman of the Windsor committee before the single committee had been established during Covid; he was now also the Chairman of the current Windsor committee. He had also sat on the borough-wide panel. It was very difficult to explain to residents, who elected Members as their representatives, that on a Development Management Committee Members sat as the Local Planning Authority, interpreting plans and policies accordingly. Residents wanted to be able to hold their local councillors to account for their interpretation of those policies and regulations. Councillor Cannon could see no benefit to residents of moving to a single panel. He understood that the proposal would save officer time, but Members were elected to represent residents and deliver for them.

 

Councillor Johnson highlighted that the vast majority of Members had voted to return to a two-committee system at the debate in June 2021. The resolution had clearly asked the Head of Planning to bring back a review to assess the effectiveness of the structure by June 2022. As the April meeting was the last ordinary meeting before that deadline, it was quite right that the report had been brought before Members.

 

Councillor Johnson thanked the Head of Planning and his team for laying out the coherent arguments for the establishment of a single committee. Despite this, he was personally unconvinced by the logic. The two panels had worked very well since they were established, and he fully understood the merits of having two distinct panels at this time.

 

Councillor Davey commented that, having talked to long-standing councillors, the council had always had two, if not three, panels. He could understand the Conservatives’ need to try and minimise the fall out of responsibility for decision making after a catalogue of poor decisions made recently, completely ignoring the Borough Local Plan, the Environment Agency, planning officers and requiring the Secretary of State to step in.

 

Councillor Davey highlighted that the Corporate Plan set out an overarching vision of ‘Creating a sustainable borough of innovation and opportunity’ and was framed around three key objectives:

• Thriving Communities:Where families and individuals are empowered to achieve their ambitions and fulfil their potential.

 

• Inspiring Places: Supporting the borough’s future prosperity and sustainability.

 

• A Council trusted to deliver its promises.

In recent planning meetings, Borough Local Plan site-specific requirements had been washed away by offers for a few cents on the dollar. Councillor Davey did not feel this demonstrated a council trusted to deliver on its promises. What was actually needed was to make decisions more, not less, transparent. All that residents could read about a Planning Application was a summary of the decision, what was voted on and the count. No written minutes on the conversations that were had and how the decision was reached were available. There was great detail in the documents ably prepared by officers as to their thinking, but absolutely no insight into why Councillors voted a certain way. There were videos with questionable sound quality but there was nothing for a resident to read in the future about a decision today and Councillor Davey felt this meant the council was seriously lacking transparency and accountability. Any Judicial Review would be looking for how a decision was made; this information was not readily available and therefore opened the council up to challenge. He particularly found the use of the whip in planning offensive.

 

Councillor Davey felt that both panels were needed along with more respect for the parish council’s view and residents’ actual needs. The existing local planning law documents needed to be treated seriously and not brushed aside with a token financial payment that bore no relation to the profitability of any large planning application. Members needed to reflect on the Corporate Plan and put more resources into the planning process, not less.

 

Councillor W. Da Costa contended that a move to one committee from two was unlawful or antilegal. It was also a further attack on the democratic powers of the people of Windsor. Wards had been carved up and joined with Eton; the Town Council proposal had been rejected; now there was a recommendation to take away the planning panel. 

 

Pinsent Masons wrote that the Localism Act 2011 aimed to move land use planning away from central government decision-making by introducing new powers, control and influence at a local level. The Act introduced the NPPF, Neighbourhood Plans, the retention of Community Infrastructure Levies (CIL) and the ability for local people to use CIL to help shape the things they needed in an area. The Localism Act was not perfect, but it did improve governance for the people, by the people. Members had an obligation to comply with the law of the land, and to ensure the council had enough staff to do so. 

 

The proposal would distance governance from the people and reduce influence at a local level and therefore it was antilegal. It would exclude local councillors with local knowledge, who understood the ‘on the street’ implications of decisions, and who would have a feel for their Neighbourhood Plan. The proposal would also distance the public from decision makers. It put a greater burden on fewer councillors to know more planning policies including all the seven or nine Neighbourhood Plans and understand all the areas in the wide and quite disparate borough. The proposal would create engagement difficulties and hurdles as fewer panel members would have to talk with a wider number of residents from out of their area, avoiding the local councillors or creating extra layers of correspondence leading to long email trails. It would give Councillors longer meetings and residents would have to waste more of their time listening to applications from out of their area. The report included a lot of unevidenced comments.

 

Councillor W. Da Costa felt that the proposal was all about cost saving. There were insufficient staff to maintain the democratic processes including those laid out in the Localism Act. The council could not afford to strengthen the teams to the staffing and skill levels needed. He urged Members to employ more officers at suitable grades and maintain two planning panels otherwise it would be an unlawful decision. 

 

Councillor Coppinger highlighted that as the then Cabinet Member, he had brought the paper to Council in June 2021. He believed that there was a total misunderstanding on the part of some Members, parish councils and members of the public on the role of the councillor who was tasked with determining the outcome based on facts and planning law. Personal knowledge was not essential and created a conflict. Of the other Berkshire unitary authorities, all operated with one panel other than West Berkshire which covered an area three times the size of the Royal Borough. Many decisions were made by the Planning Inspector who was unlikely to even live in the locality. Councillor Coppinger therefore supported the proposal in the report. He commented that the ‘bad’ decision referred to by Councillor Walters related to the creation of the Thames Hospice, which was valued by every person in the borough.

 

Councillor Walters requested a personal explanation. He stated that there was nothing wrong with the hospice, the issue was the size of the development and car parking on an already congested road.

 

Councillor L. Jones commented that the report did not give any additional reasons for only having one panel than had been provided a year earlier. She did not believe resourcing should be a reason to move to a single panel. Councillors had five working days prior to the meeting to completely understand each application. The comment that it was a bad thing that there were some meetings with only one item to consider was therefore a misnomer. She would prefer meetings were cancelled rather than having extra meetings being added in because there was insufficient time to understand the development. The proposal might save on staff resourcing but there was already immense pressure on councillors with jobs and family lives to cope with multiple applications in one session.

 

Councillor Baldwin commented on the appalling democratic deficit in planning matters for the unparished Maidenhead area. The residents did not have parish councillors with whom they could discuss concerns; there was no town council or Neighbourhood Plan. At a moment in time when there was a heightened sensitivity around planning, the proposal was to abolish what was, for many Maidonians, the last body that was directly accountable to them.

 

Much of the work outlined in Table 2 of the report would be the same if there was one or two committees. There were already different officers for the different areas of the borough. Only having one committee would suggest only one team manager post was needed; Councillor Baldwin commented that there was no recommendation to eliminate that duplication in the report. Legal officers did not always attend meetings. The only concrete monetary value in the report was the £6355 to be saved by reducing the number of Chairmen. This would however not be a saving as the Chairman was in receipt of a more generous stipend as a Cabinet Member.

 

The paucity of applications was not an argument for scrapping a panel but for restoring those powers that were delegated to officers during Covid, and reversing the restriction on call-ins. Councillor Baldwin suggested the technical briefing should be scrapped and the public meeting could start at 6pm. In relation to the impact on decision making, Councillor Baldwin questioned the measure of inconsistency. Paragraph 2.1.2 admitted there was no data available. The Head of Planning had stated at the meeting the previous week that this was not a concern,

 

Councillor Baldwin referred Members to paragraph 2.3 of the Members Planning Code of Conduct that set out Members exercised two roles in the planning system. They determined applications and they acted as representatives of public opinion. To do this, they needed to know what the public opinion was. As he wandered around Maidenhead, Councillor Baldwin talked to residents therefore he knew the strength of feeling in Maidenhead wards. He did not know this for Windsor, Ascot or Eton wards. He would not put the convenience of the unelected few before the rights of the voting many.

 

Councillor Reynolds commented that he had sat on a cross-party working group with parish council representatives. All the Members were of the same opinion that keeping two panels was important for both Members and residents. This perspective had significant support during the debate in 2021 and the current report added nothing new. The report argued that two panels increased the risk of inconsistencies yet there was no data available. For many people it was important to have local people, democratically elected, making decisions in their area. Keeping two panels might be more time consuming, cumbersome and cost a bit more but if this was the price of democracy Councillor Reynolds felt it was a price worth paying.

 

Councillor Bhangra commented that a single panel was understandable at the hight of the pandemic when meetings were held online, but the return to two committees had worked well.

 

Councillor Brar stated that she represented two parish councils. All were very protective of the conservation area, the green belt, and the unique and precious landscape. She asked if any parish councils were consulted on the report. She believed the proposed changes would eradicate her voice on the panel and prevent her fulfilling her obligations to her residents. Maintaining the emergency measures around call-ins would further impact her ability to hold decision-makers to account. Councillor Brar highlighted that the Parish Charter required the council to work in partnership with parish councils.

 

Councillor Larcombe commented that as far as he could see the issue was about money and the cost of officers balanced against the powers of individual councillors. He had almost permanently sat on a parish council since 1986. Lots of things went on that people did not know about because they happened at an officer level. It was sensible to keep the two panels.

 

Councillor Knowles stated that he had been a member of the working group. The elements of the report a year ago based around resourcing were also in the current report. There were specialist officers for each area so if there was a mixture of applications both would need to attend anyway. To ensure defensible decisions a number of recommendations had been made in the 2021 report including mandatory training, which had been taking place, and standardising decision making. The sensible safeguards had worked. The parish councils on the working group had felt they would lose a link to their local representatives if there was just one panel. The council officer teams were split up into geographic areas, to allow them to build up local knowledge. Councillor Knowles questioned why this would not also apply to Members.

 

Councillor Bateson commented that her residents had asked for a return to two panels. Her ward was in the very south of the borough. She visited all sites which would mean a 20-mile journey if an application was on the border with Buckinghamshire.

 

Councillor Hill stated that he was wholeheartedly against the proposal, which had been slated by the public on social media and in private communications with him. He felt that planning decisions, particularly controversial ones, must be made by local councillors. Public trust would be lost if the proposal was voted through. One panel would be open to manipulation. Some members of the public had commented that the proposal was being made so that controversial applications could be forced through. There was increasing public concern about trust, transparency and accountability in the council’s decision-making processes.

 

Councillor Bowden explained that he lived in his ward, in a conservation area, and had previously lived in a listed building. The experience of planning officers was needed in his ward because of the unique properties in the conservation area. This also required the attention of a dedicated panel with local councillors. He had been on the Windsor Panel for seven years and there had never been whipped decisions.

 

Councillor Taylor commented that during Covid, all involved in the single online panel had done an exceptional job in difficult times. For many residents, local councillors were their only way into the process; they did not understand the planning portal. If there were only one panel, residents would lose sight of what was going on. One application could have hundreds of submissions on the portal which took hours of preparation. If a councillor was not local to the area, they would have to delve further to understand the pertinent aspects of the application.

 

Councillor Sharpe stated that localism and democracy were paramount. To him, one panel was anti-democratic. Residents expected to have two panels and decisions to be made locally.

 

Councillor Tisi supported the idea of the review and had been looking forward to robust recommendations and evidence to back up the arguments, for example in relation to inconsistencies. These had not been provided. There was anecdotal evidence that local knowledge had a positive impact. For example, at the debate over the redevelopment of the old Thames Hospice site, ward councillors had spoken of the local character and the application had been rejected by the panel. The Inspector had agreed. Councillor Tisi had sympathy for officers in relation to workloads but there were bigger issues that needed to be resolved if the officer core was overstretched.

 

Councillor Clark acknowledged that local knowledge was important, but applications were determined on the facts, the evidence and according to law. He was unhappy at some of the insinuations otherwise that had been made during the debate. There was no evidence in the report that it would be a good idea to revert back to one panel. He did not think the savings were evidenced or the advantages had been properly demonstrated.

 

Councillor Hilton commented that in his experience, all played a straight bat when sitting on Development Management Committees and he rejected any accusations of manipulation. Councillor Hilton highlighted that he had been the only councillor to vote against the proposal to move to one panel in June 2021. At the start of the Covid pandemic, full Council had agreed a move to a single panel and changes to the delegations to officers and call ins. He had sat on the single panel, and it had been clear that Members had sufficient knowledge and took the issues before them seriously. Members were exceptionally diligent when considering applications from outside their area. The council was sensitive to the views of parish councils and residents, and both had the opportunity, along with ward councillors, to address the committee. Planning was a quasi-judicial process guided by the NPPF, the Borough Local Plan and increasingly, Neighbourhood Plans.  Committees made decisions within that context, taking account of, but not being driven by, public views. Councillor Hilton highlighted that, subsequent to the return to two committees, Members had agreed a change to the terms of reference to allow substitutes to come from any ward, which had established the principle that Members form any ward could make decisions. The overriding reason for the recommendation was the efficient and effective use of the council’s scarce planning resources. There was a country-wide shortage of planning officers, and the council should do all it could to retain them. The Head of Planning had taken the opportunity afforded to him by the previous report in the hope that Members would be sympathetic and supportive of his request to allow him to run a more efficient planning service.

 

Councillor Haseler thanked the Head of Planning and his team.

 

A named vote was taken. 3 Councillors voted for the motion; 35 Councillors voted against the motion. The motion therefore fell.