Issue - meetings

This report seeks the Committee approval to the introduction and use of Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) as a means of dealing with major planning applications.

Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) were a way of dealing with major planning applications.  These allowed the Council to move away from standardised timescales to agreed performance targets and were a framework agreed between the local planning authority and a planning applicant for the management of complex development proposals within the planning process.

A PPA would be negotiated during the pre-application process and would encompass all stages of the process up to the decision stage.  The main objective of a PPA would be to enhance the quality of the final development and to reach a decision within appropriate timescales which reflected the complexity of the issues involved in the development proposal.  PPAs provided the opportunity for major schemes to be exempt from the thirteen week performance targets.

PPAs had been introduced in 2008 and the majority of the London planning authorities as well as other areas of the UK had developed a regular income stream from them.

The Committee was asked to consider the introduction of PPAs and related protocol, and the following points were noted:

·                     It was anticipated that developers would be keen to engage with the scheme as there were many benefits and incentives to take part including: more attention being given to major applications; a more streamlined service and improved communication and working relationships;

·                     Currently, in most cases, the planning service charged a fixed pre-application fee for a single meeting.  With PPAs the development management team would offer a set of additional meetings in addition to the pre-application process.  The fee would be negotiated on a case by case basis, dependent on the scale and complexity of the scheme, and charged on a cost recovery basis only; 

·                     As a result of having an agreed schedule of meetings, Officers would be able to more effectively plan their workloads and establish the commitment of both internal and external working parties;

·                     PPAs would be used solely for major applications, i.e. in excess of 10 units.

The Committee agreed to the following amendments to the Planning Performance Protocol:

·                     Page 5, paragraph 8.1: “Project Champions” to be amended to read “Project Champion”;

·                     Page 6, table in paragraph 9 (Local Planning Authority team): Officers names to be deleted to retain only job roles;

·                     Page 6, paragraph 10, Member Involvement:  Clarification was requested regarding the number of Members who could be involved in the project, overall and per ward.

Accordingly, subject to the amendments detailed above, the Committee agreed to the use of Planning Performance Agreements and to adopt the protocol contained in the Planning Performance Agreement.