minutes

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 14th July 2010 (Minute Nos. 208 - 216) were taken as read, approved and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

The Minutes of the Standards Appeal Sub-Committee held on 8th July 2010 (Minute Nos. 196 - 200) and the Standards Referral Sub-Committee held on 8th July 2010 (Minute Nos. 201 - 204) were accepted by the Committee and signed by the Chairman.

declarations of interest

No interests were declared.

part a minutes for confirmation by council

members' planning code of good practice

The Development Manager introduced the report which set out the Members' Planning Code of Good Practice and he welcomed comments on the report, prior to it being agreed.

He explained that the Code of Good Practice was useful to both Councillors and Officers in order to ensure good governance. It was proposed that the Local Government Association (LGA) "Probity in Planning: the role of Councillors and Officers" should be adopted by the Council, together with the supplementary local procedure notes. The Development Manager explained that further supplementary procedure notes would follow and examples of these were highlighted in section 3.7 of the report.

The Development Manager outlined the potential consequences of Members not abiding by the Code of Good Practice which included the increased risk of proceedings on the legality or maladministration of a decision, and a Member being named and proceedings being referred to either the Standards Committee, or if more serious, Standards for England.

The Development Manager guided Members through Procedure Notes A, B and C. Key points included: proposals that a third party objector/supporter could speak so long as he/she had previously made a representation during the formal consultation process of an application; there should be a 24 hour cut-off for submission of additional information; and proposals that site visits were not open to the public, but should be an opportunity for Members to visually assess the site and gather more information to assist in making their decision.

Members considered the proposal to ban public speaking at Planning Site Visits and the following points were made: if the public did not get an opportunity to give their point of view there would be bad feeling; debate would be stifled; the present situation did not need to be changed; it was wrong to stop public speaking; public lose their chance to speak on planning matters; it was useful to get the views of local residents; public were given the opportunity to speak 'face to face' on issues, rather than write in; some areas did not have a Parish or a Town Council, so having the opportunity to speak at site visits enabled more public opinion to be given and the public should be allowed to be empowered by being given the opportunity to speak.

In response to queries, the Development Manager explained the difference between site visits and site meetings. Site visits were meetings involving solely Members and Officers and site meetings were meetings of all interested parties including the public, parish/town councils, the media and consultees, which was the current situation at Swale Borough Council (SBC). He reminded Members that public speaking at Planning Committee Meetings and site meetings had only been in force at SBC for the last nine years. The Development Manager confirmed that he would clarify the situation on page 11 to clarify whether the public could speak at a subsequent Planning Committee, after a site visit.

Under recommendation two, amendments to the procedure notes were proposed as follows:

Procedure Note A

Title to read 'Member and Public Speaking at Planning Committee Meetings'.
Change to read 'Ward Councillor(s)'
Add 'or Town Council representative'
First paragraph in bold to include the word 'unfairly' before the word 'influence'

Procedure Note C

Title to read 'Procedure for Members' Planning Committee site meetings'.
And to clarify within the procedure note a proposal that Procedure Note C be amended to use uniform consistent language and definition throughout, ie to read, 'planning site meetings'.
Add fourth bullet point on page 10 to read ' where extensive views relevant to planning are likely to be expressed'.
In purposes of site visit insert point (iii) from the original document, to read: "to permit interested parties to point out specific site based concerns and raise site specific questions to the decision making body."
Page 11, Step 3 to read, "to ask questions of the planning officer, of objectors/supporters, the applicant, advisors and interested experts".
Under the Summary section, an additional bullet point to read 'Planning Committee Members will then be asked to ask questions relevant to the site inspection.' Bullet number four to change to read 'Local Ward Members will be able to comment and ask questions relevant to the planning application.' And 'members of the public will be able to comment and ask questions relevant to the planning application.'

Under recommendation three, discussion ensued on the need for visits to other Local Authorities. The Development Manager explained that these visits would enable the Council to learn best practice at other authorities and would also include gathering other relevant information sought following the recent Planning Advisory Service Review. A proposal was made to not include the site visits in the recommendation.

In response to a question, the Monitoring Officer explained that amendments to the Planning Code of Good Practice would be included within the review of SBC's constitution. The Interim Head of Legal explained that, if agreed, the LGA guidance note would become part of SBC's constitution.

work programme

The Monitoring Officer introduced the Work Programme which set out the programme of suggested themes for the Standards Committee to consider. He suggested that not too much time should be committed to these at the present time of uncertainty.