Agenda item

Members considered the reports within the District Executive agenda for 1 October 2020 and raised comments as detailed below. Responses to most questions and comments were provided at Scrutiny Committee by the relevant officers – except those marked by an asterisk.

 Corporate Performance Report: 1^st Quarter (Agenda Item 6)

·         Members acknowledged the current strange and difficult times due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and recognised the good work going on.

·         Page 11, PCS 11 -14, members congratulated the planning team on performance targets.

·         Some members suggested a measure for reporting performance on tree works applications would be useful.

·         *Page 11, PCS 14, members noted the figures and that the Q1 figure was well below the 10% threshold. Members queried if there was still a need to two-star major applications with referral to Regulation Committee where an Area Committee was minded to go against an officer recommendation of approval.

·         *Page 14, EN5, it was acknowledged the figure was for countywide, Members queried if the wording of the measure and description was still correct as it was understood that South Somerset residual waste no longer went to landfill but went to Avonmouth Resource Recovery Centre.

Update Report on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Council (Agenda Item 7)

·         Page 19, para 19, some members queried if there had been much take up for pavement licences.

·         Page 18, para 12, members asked if match funding would be required for the bid regarding a new house of multiple occupation and when the outcome of the bid would be known?

·         The report makes several references to the word ‘numbers’ but no figures or statistics are provided. e.g para 5. In future reports it would be useful to have actual figures as well as percentages stated.

·         *Page 25, planning (bottom of list) – members noted the figures and queried what was being done to rebalance the time of planning staff? Why were backlogs increasing? Does enforcement have enough resources?

·         Members noted in the report there were some acronyms that needed expanding or a glossary provided.

Planning Appeal Performance (Agenda Item 8)

·         *Members queried if any analysis had been done for the appeals such as large or small developments; residential or other; full, householder or listed building etc; what sort of appeals are being lost and costs awarded etc.

·         *Members acknowledged that the data / spreadsheet containing information on the appeals would be circulated to members following the meeting. Without the data, members commented it was difficult to understand the report.

·         Members were concerned that the way the report was written seemed to infer that they were being put on ‘the naughty step’.

·         Para 16 – regarding possible costs being met by an area committee – some members sought clarification about whether this was something new.

·         Para 17 – some members noted the changes in risks outlined in the risk matrix and queried what had brought about the change to risks

·         *Several members noted that we were being told to be consistent with our decision making, however the same did not seem to apply to the Planning Inspectorate / Inspectors, which was having an impact on SSDC. Members felt quite strongly that the matter should be highlighted, and recommend the District Executive consider raising concerns with the Planning Inspectorate.

·         It was noted that planning is an emotive subject and members recognised the improvements being made.

District Executive Forward Plan (Agenda Item 9)

·         Some members noted there was an expectation that a further item would be on the Forward Plan to consider the outcome of the unitary bids, both Stronger Somerset and One Somerset. It was acknowledged that a timeframe wasn’t known at the current time.

·         Some members suggested that given the Planning Re-Imagined work being undertaken internally and the planning white paper, that a report regarding the Planning Service should feature on the Forward Plan?