10 Feb 2014 : Column 3MC

10 Feb 2014 : Column 3MC

Ministerial Correction

Monday 10 February 2014

Communities and Local Government

Planning Permission: Hampshire

Mr Mike Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many planning appeals have resulted in local authority decisions being overturned by the planning inspector in (a) Portsmouth South constituency and (b) Hampshire in each of the last five years. [179932]

[Official Report, 17 December 2013, Vol. 572, c. 571W.]

Letter of correction from Nick Boles:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) on 17 December 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

Nick Boles: Planning is a quasi-judicial process; it is a long-standing feature of the planning system that there is a right of appeal, just as there are with other local quasi-judicial decisions such as on licensing applications, gambling applications or parking fines.

Since January 2008 there have been 83,507 Planning Appeal decisions for Portsmouth and 1,169,098 for the whole of Hampshire. An analysis of decisions by individual constituencies, such as Portsmouth South, is not available.

10 Feb 2014 : Column 4MC

These figures show how the number of planning appeals received and allowed has fallen in the first year of the National Planning Policy Framework, refuting the suggestion of ‘planning by appeal'.

The correct answer should have been:

Nick Boles: Planning is a quasi-judicial process; it is a long-standing feature of the planning system that there is a right of appeal, just as there are with other local quasi-judicial decisions such as on licensing applications, gambling applications or parking fines.

Since April 2008 there have been 140 Planning Appeal decisions for Portsmouth and 2,954 for the whole of Hampshire. An analysis of decisions by individual constituencies, such as Portsmouth South, is not available.

These figures show how the number of planning appeals received and allowed in Hampshire has fallen in the first year of the National Planning Policy Framework, refuting the suggestion of ‘planning by appeal’.