Decision details

Upon the invitation of the Chair, the Planning Area Team Leader presented his report which sought to update the Compliance Strategy which was last amended in 2019. He explained that, although the update was not a complete overhaul, some of the changes were far reaching and gave the example of not all enforcement cases being investigated going forward as often no action was taken for a variety of reasons and so was deemed not the best use of Officers’ time.Officers’ time would instead be put to better use tackling cases that were problematic and caused harm to the amenity in Arun.

After the Chair had outlined the four recommendations of the report, Members took part in a full debate on the item where a number of points were raised and responded to by Officers, including:

·       clarification of case priority and in particular caravans and development related to travellers

·       the Officer allocation for this work and staffing levels within Planning more generally, and whether the proposed reduction in work was due to a reduction in staff

·       support for the principle that the public have to be clearer in the information they give to add the triage of problems

·       whether online only forms would exclude residents who were uncertain of what they were reporting and sought advice and assistance of the process

The Group Head of Planning confirmed that the Compliance Strategy was based on a team that was fully resourced and, although there were issues in resourcing the team, it was not a reaction to these issues. The Planning Area Team Leader confirmed that Parish Councils would be consulted on the Strategy before it was formally implemented.

Following comments from the Acting Monitoring Officer and Planning Solicitor on the Officer recommendations around the date of adoption for the Strategy and the consultation with Town and Parish Councils from an enforcement and prosecution point of view, deferral was proposed and seconded pending the outcome of the informal consultation with Town and Parish Councils.

The Committee

RESOLVED

That the item be DEFERRED pending the outcome of the informal consultation with Town and Parish Councils.