[Note In accordance with Standing Order 14.11 of Chichester District Council’s Constitution, this item is allocated a maximum duration of 40 minutes]
Minutes:
The questions asked by members and the responses given were as follows:
Question by Mr Lloyd-Williams: Decision by the Chief Executive to Transfer Certain Litter Enforcement Functions to East Hampshire District Council
Mr Lloyd-Williams asked why this decision had been taken and what cost, if any, there would be to CDC.
Response by Mrs Lintill
Mrs Lintill (Cabinet Member for Community Services) explained that East Hampshire District Council had been operating a very successful scheme in its own area and for Arun District Council and that it had invited CDC to engage its services. This had been approved by the Cabinet on a one-year trial basis without cost to CDC.
Question by Mrs Plant: Recent Planning Appeal Decisions and Chichester District Council’s Five-Year Housing Supply Position
Mrs Plant asked about two recently allowed planning appeal decisions which would have far-reaching implications for the whole of Chichester District's plan area. She mentioned in particular the more recent of the appeal decision letters which referred specifically to para 49 of the National Planning Policy Framework, namely '...that when the five-year housing supply cannot be demonstrated, the decision reverts to para 14 on the presumption of sustainable development, unless the adverse impacts effects outweigh the benefits....'. She asked what positive action was being taken by CDC to speed up the five-year housing land supply (FYHLS) and thereby to minimise the potential impact of those local appeal decisions on the wider community.
Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) said that there were sufficient sites which had been identified in the Chichester Local Plan and which were being granted planning permission to maintain CDC’s FYHLS. CDC faced two problems at planning appeals: (a) some sites were taking longer to come forward due to various constraints eg land ownership (such as in the case of the Tangmere strategic development location site) or complex infrastructure requirements and (b) slow build-rates which could be affected by a variety of factors including the economy. Officers were currently reviewing the expected build-rates.
Question by Mr Ransley: Chichester District Council’s Five-Year Housing Supply Position
Mr Ransley asked whether CDC’s five-year housing land supply (FYHLS) was viable and also if the policies in the Chichester Local Plan were capable of implementation.
Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) said that as far as CDC was concerned, it had at the time of the planning appeals and continued to have a FYHLS.
Question by Mr Brown: Southbourne Neighbourhood Development Plan
Mr Brown said that many Southbourne residents were asking where the village’s neighbourhood development plan (NDP) now stood following the appeal decision with respect to SB/16/03569/OUT - Land East of Breach Avenue Southbourne. He wished to know (a) what response was being considered regarding that decision, (b) whether the decision had implications for other NDPs in Chichester District and (c) what might be done to strengthen NDPs and residents’ faith in them. He expressed his gratitude to Mrs R Jones and other CDC officers who had worked so hard in their defence of Southbourne’s NDP at the planning appeal.
Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor expressed her great disappointment at the planning inspector’s decision on the Southbourne planning appeal. She said that in the light of that outcome CDC’s Planning Committee had made the following resolution on Wednesday 15 November 2017 namely that (1) the decision to send a letter before claim in respect of a potential challenge of the decision letter be ratified; (2) an application be made to the High Court for a declaration (in the event that the parties agree) or to lodge a claim to quash the inspector’s decision letter; and (3) any further decisions necessary in the process be delegated to Andrew Frost, Head of Planning Services, in consultation with Legal Services. CDC was seeking independent legal advice regarding the appeal decision. She emphasised that NDPs were a part of CDC’s Development Plan and CDC accorded them great importance. She added that CDC robustly defended planning appeals.
Question by Mr Ransley: Secretary of State’s Approach to Neighbourhood Development Plans
Mr Ransley asked if the Secretary of State was still upholding policies in adopted neighbourhood development plans (NDPs).
Response by Mr Frost
Mr Frost (Head of Planning Services)said that for a couple of years the Secretary of State had routinely called in at the appeal stage all planning applications which affected a NDP.
Question by Mr Dunn: Chichester District Council’s Prospective Involvement in the Examination of the South Downs National Park Authority’s Local Plan
Mr Dunn referred to the apparent intention by various parish councils to challenge the soundness of and the consultation process with respect to the South Downs National Park Authority’s (SDNPA) draft Local Plan and asked if CDC would be attending the public examination of the SDNPA’s draft Local Plan.
Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services)said that the Cabinet had approved at its recent meeting CDC’s response to the SDNPA’s consultation on its Local Plan Pre-Submission.
Question by Richard Plowman: Restructuring of Chichester District Council’s Conservation and Design Services
Mr Plowman asked the following question on behalf of the Chichester Conservation Area Advisory Committee (CCAAC) in his capacity as CDC’s appointed representative on the CCAAC:
‘Introduction
At its meeting of 5 July 2017 the Cabinet approved a paper entitled Design Management Service Strategy that covered a restructuring of the Council’s planning services. What that paper did not include was a parallel major restructuring of the other section of planning, namely Conservation and Design. This restructuring has, from 10 November, resulted in the net loss of one post in an already over-stretched section. That lost post is the Historic Buildings Advisor (HBA).
Chichester District has four concentrations of listed buildings, planning applications for which frequently require expert advice. In addition the District requires the preparation of conservation area character appraisals and the implementation of Article 4 Directions. All this was carried out by the Senior HBA and the HBA with input from the Conservation and Design Manager which ceased at the beginning of the year when Lone le Vay resigned. That post, or its equivalent, has still not been filled. At present four character appraisals are incomplete and overdue and the long-awaited and much needed Article 4 Directions for Chichester have still not been implemented, all of which is not surprising given the impossible workload falling on two people.
Prior to the reorganisation it was directed that, in order to speed up response times, case officers were encouraged not to refer a listed building application to the HBA unless they felt it was necessary. To fit them for this, case officers were supposed to have undergone training in historic buildings and conservation but this did not happen, and it is still outstanding. This has already resulted in the despoiling of an important historic timber-framed building in North Street Chichester
The Council is contracted to provide historic buildings advice to the South Downs National Park Planning Authority, which service the HBA and Senior HBA were also providing. The Senior HBA was also seconded to Arun District Council for one day per week but it is understood that this is to cease.
This cutting back of conservation staff reflects a regrettable national trend – Historic England reported a 2% reduction in the last 12 months and a 36% reduction since 2006, demonstrating that conservation is seen by local planning authorities as a soft target for staff cuts.
I would ask the following questions:
(1) Why, in the light of the above, was the Conservation and Design Service restructuring not included in the paper that Cabinet approved on 5 July?
(2) Why were case officers given carte blanche to determine applications for historic buildings before the necessary training was given?
(3) How and when will that training be implemented?
(4) In the light of the reduction in staff, how and when will the outstanding character appraisals and Article 4 Directions be completed and implemented?
(5) How, in the light of the reduction in staff, will the Council’s contractual obligation to provide historic buildings advice to the South Downs National Park Authority be honoured?
(6) Why is no review of the efficacy of the restructuring planned to be carried out?’
Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) thanked Mr Plowman for his courtesy in giving her advance notice of the foregoing questions and provided the following response:
‘Thank you for your questions concerning the restructure of the Council’s Conservation and Design service. I will make some general comments first which may help to explain the background and implications of the review.
Firstly, the Council carries our periodic reviews of all its services and there have, as a consequence, been reviews of the Development Management, Enforcement and Planning Policy teams over the last few years with changes to the staffing structure made, to ensure that the provision of those services continues to meet the needs of the Council. Such reviews are carried out by the senior managers of the affected services.
The new service structure for Conservation and Design retains the Archaeology Officer and Senior Historic Buildings Advisor posts unchanged with the Conservation and Design Manager and Historic Buildings Advisor posts deleted. A new Principal Conservation and Design Officer post has been created. Whilst this has resulted in the net loss of one post, this needs to be seen in the context of some substantial adjustments to the responsibilities for the team. These changes include:
· The cessation of the provision of historic building advice to Arun District Council which previously took a significant proportion of the Senior Historic Building Advisor’s time;
· Changes to the way public art and Section 106 planning obligations monitoring is handled and a reduction in management duties – all of which took a large part of the Conservation and Design Manager’s time and have now been removed from the team’s area of responsibility.
Cabinet members were regularly briefed about the proposed changes to the structure of the Conservation and Design team and were fully aware of them.
In terms of your specific questions:
(1) The report to Cabinet on 5 September to which I think you refer concerned changes to the staffing of the Development Management teams and in particular, proposals to add three additional posts to the service. As this amounted to budget growth, it was necessary for the proposals to be formally reported to Cabinet for its consideration.
(2) There is a great deal of expertise in conservation and design matters amongst the senior officers of the DM Service and it is not necessary to refer all applications for development within the conservation area to the Conservation and Design team. Case officers have continued therefore to receive appropriate advice and support in making recommendations on planning proposals – they do not of course make the decision. Whilst we have experienced some difficulties in dealing with current workloads in the interim situation whilst recruitment takes place to the new principal officer post, this is expected to be temporary and short term only. We have already appointed a temporary conservation officer to deal with more complex cases and expect to fill the new permanent post shortly.
(3) Additional training for DM staff is being arranged where required to ensure that the wider Planning service can operate effectively. This will comprise short focused sessions both for officers on an individual basis and in group sessions, e.g. via webinars arranged by Historic England.
(4) As explained, the reduction in the size of the team is largely offset by adjustments to its work and responsibilities. Once the new principal officer post has been filled, I expect that the outstanding character appraisal work will be prioritised for completion.
(5) I have already outlined how the reduction in the size of the team is largely offset by the work it will in future carry out. In fact, there will actually be an increase in the seniority of the posts dealing with conservation and design work as the new principal officer post will be expected to deal with some historic building work, alongside design and other conservation work. Given also that DM Officers will be better trained to deal with many historic and conservation matters themselves, it is not anticipated that there will be any noticeable reduction in the service provided to the SDNPA.
(6) Whilst I do not envisage a formal review of progress, the effectiveness of service delivery will be kept under review to ensure that it meets the needs of the Council. If it is evident that an issue needs to be addressed after the new service has had sufficient time to settle down, then we will clearly give it proper consideration.’
She said that she would arrange for her answer to be copied to all members.
Supplementary Question by Mr Plowman: Training Offer by Chichester Conservation Area Advisory Committee
Mr Plowman remarked with regard to the need for training that some historic buildings decisions had already been taken by officers without the requisite training having first been given. He said that the CCAAC, which had a very good knowledge of the city, had previously offered to provide training for officers.
Supplementary Response by Mrs Taylor
Mrs Taylor acknowledged with gratitude the CCAAC’s helpful offer. She said that any decision about training would need to be made by Mr A Frost (Head of Planning Services).
Observation by Mr Ransley: Scrutiny Review of the Conservation and Design Service
Mr Ransley expressed appreciation for the response given by Mrs Taylor, which he said helped to explain some of the issues he had encountered in the last four months. He said that he intended to ask Mrs Apel as the Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) to schedule a review of the Conservation and Design Service in a year’s time and whether the proposed new arrangements were working.
Question by Mr Oakley: Progress with the Tangmere Strategic Development Location Site, Inclusion of Student Accommodation in the Calculation of the Five-Year Housing Land Supply and the Need for the Government to Accept that the Principal Risk to Maintaining a Five-Year Housing Land Supply was Caused by Landowners and Developers
Mr Oakley’s question related to the aforesaid three matters. He wished to know what actions could be taken to tell the government that a local planning authority’s five-year housing land supply (FYHLS) was mainly put in jeopardy by the failure of land owners and developers either to bring land forward for development or to implement planning permissions. He asked to be given some idea of the timetables for having usable evidence about student accommodation and seeking a compulsory purchase order (CPO) for the Tangmere site.
Response by Mrs Taylor and Mr Frost
Mrs Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) and Mr Frost (Head of Planning Services) said that work was ongoing with regard to seeking a CPO in respect of the Tangmere strategic development location site and a further meeting was scheduled for later in the week with CDC’s specialist advisers. More officer time would be available now that the Southern Gateway Masterplan had been adopted at this Council meeting. Consideration was being given as to how best to ensure that student accommodation could be included as part of the FYHLS and to persuade the government that a local planning authority’s FYHLS could be significantly affected by developers’ build-rates. The work required on student accommodation could be undertaken within a reasonable period of time and would be given a priority. It was hoped that members could be given details about a timetable for the Tangmere CPO process after the aforesaid meeting.
[Note This concluded Questions to the Executive]