To receive any announcements from the Chairman.

The Chairman welcomed Mr Andrew Ashcroft, the new Head of planning Services to his first meeting of the Committee.  He also reported on the following matters:-

HEREFORD FLOOD ALLEVIATION SCHEME

A planning application would be considered at a forthcoming meeting of the Committee and would be preceded by a site inspection.

PERFORMANCE BY PLANNING SERVICES DEPARTMENT

(a) Development Control Performance

BV 109 – processing planning applications

In the quarter ending 30^th June 2006 the Best Value performance figures for processing planning applications were as follows:

It follows that all three BV 109 targets were met.

No announcement has been made yet about next years Planning Delivery Grant but it is expected that the Development Control element of Planning Delivery Grant will be based on 12 months performance to June 2006. The BV 109 out-turn figures for this period were:

It follows that all three BV 109 targets were met for the relevant period and, hopefully, the Planning Delivery Grant will in due course reflect this.

BV 204  - Appeals

            In the quarter April to June 2006 22 appeals against refusals of planning permission have been determined and, of these, only 4 have been upheld. This is a percentage of 18%. There is no national target for this figure, but the national average is around 33% and Herefordshire Council’s local target is 25%. It follows that, in this first quarter of the year, performance has been well above target.

Enforcement

            Currently there are no Best Value Performance indicators for enforcement, but data is being collected with a view to developing local enforcement indicators. In the quarter April to June the following data has been collected:

            Data has also been collected on the number of planning applications received as a result of enforcement investigations.

            In the quarter April to June 2006 53 Applications have been received as a result of Planning Enforcement Action. These have generated in £8,800 application fees.

(a) Changes to the Development Control System

Further provisions of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 have been brought into effect. In particular, from 10^th August 2006 most planning applications will need to be accompanied by a “Design and Access Statement”. These statements will require developers to set out, in a formal statement, the justification for the following aspects of their proposals:

the proposed use of the site

the amount of development (including its density)

the proposed Layout

the Scale of the development

Landscaping

Overall appearance

In terms of access developers will have to explain how the development makes provision for access to the site and within the site, and how it relates to the “Movement network” in the locality including roads, paths, and public transport facilities.

It is hoped that Design and Access Statements will allow a significant change in the way applications are assessed so that, for example, local planning authorities can consider whether the design is good enough to approve,  rather than whether it is not bad enough to refuse.