Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-163)
COUNCILLOR MIKE
HAINES, MR
PETER GAIT
AND MS
CARLY DOCKERILL
18 MAY 2009
Q160 Chair: I think I am getting
lost here because you seem to be arguing about the need test,
that the good thing about it is that it is quantitative, so there
cannot be any argument about it, and indeed that it is a sort
of pass or fail test, which is exactly one of the reasons Kate
Barker argued against it, and yet now you are saying, "No,
no, it's not that objective, there are qualitative items within
it," in which case it is not pass or fail and it is not clear-cut?
Mr Gait: I am saying that the
quantitative need is a good assessment, a starting point, but
not the only starting point. It is not a pass or fail. So if a
development failed the quantitative test, that it was edge of
centre and could provide benefits, a positive impact, that would
counteract the lack of quantitative need.
Chair: Okay. Can we move on to the issue
about planning capacity.
Q161 Mr Betts: One of the concerns
is that if you get something which is complicated with lots of
elements to it there is more scope for developers to employ highly-paid
consultants to run rings around the local authority planning,
who are hard-pressed already. Is there some real concern about
that, or is it just something which has been used to defend the
status quo?
Cllr Haines: I think it is inevitably
the case that the applicants are going to have money to get into
it, whereas the local authority, of course, is just running the
things it is dealing with and there are inevitably budgetary restraints.
If I take my own authority at the moment, we have got large bills
for the LDF moving forward. We have got falling incomes at the
moment with applications, so it is going to be difficult to find
any money. I am sure other authorities are finding the same. If
it can be funded through the applicants themselves more to enable
us to do that, then that would be helpful. Perhaps the officers
would be able to give their perspective, but my perspective as
a councillor is that it is something which we would find difficult,
and we have found difficult when we have had to have consultants
in the past on a range of issues on planning applications in order
to give us the advice we need and support our case.
Q162 David Wright: Why don't you
do it together then, the regional and local authorities, and start
to employ specialist planning officers between you?
Cllr Haines: We have done. My
authority does cooperate with a neighbouring local authority for
somebody to do with design, so it is not unknown and we certainly
cooperate on building control as well, so there is that interlinking.
So it is happening, but sharing half a person, or less, you are
not always where you want to be.
David Wright: It is a good start, though.
Q163 Chair: What about Mr Gait?
Mr Gait: We have employed consultants
in the past. Consultants are expensive and there are concerns
about that and as a large authority we tend to do retail assessments
in-house.
Ms Dockerill: That is one of my
reservations with the proposed system, that whilst it is great
that we have got detailed practice guidance now, we do have burdens
in the planning team and the LDF document production, and that
is my concern, that the amount of time that we can allocate to
the pre-application meetings and liaising with the applicant with
draft retail impact assessments and to-ing and fro-ing, it does
take up a lot of time and inevitably when the economic situation
does get better we may be having to look at several at once. Indeed,
I have in recent periods looked at several at once with an extension,
so it does take up time and unfortunately there are not many of
us who have the skills to look at them. So, yes, the burden does
fall on one person.
Cllr Haines: Can I just add to
that? I was speaking to an officer in my authority a couple of
days ago and he was saying how he was having to take two days
out of doing his LDF work to do a response to another national
park consultation, and I think the same would apply here. Other
things would suffer in a sort of progression of the LDF, for example.
That is the problem we have.
Chair: Thank you very much.
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