Anyone know how much sway Parish Council has?

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

[...]  PCs seem to be magnificent tangentialists.

 

A word worth committing to memory, that one.

[Incipiens Mox]

On 11/12/2017 at 09:46, Barney12 said:

 What I can categorically say is that those parish councils have almost no influence on the planning process.

 

 

Completely concur. It was the same for me and I was told by a friend who is an experienced commercial developer that planning officers very rarely take any notice of parish council objections.

Thinking about it, some of the reasons may stem from small-scale politics, the need to be seen to be objecting etc. However, there's a case that they could raise issues at a local community level - loss of amenity perhaps - that may not be raised by individual householder objections.

Sounds in this case like a local councilor has had his ear bent by Mr Angry rather than anything of real substance.

[Ferdinand]

10 minutes ago, Incipiens Mox said:

 

Completely concur. It was the same for me and I was told by a friend who is an experienced commercial developer that planning officers very rarely take any notice of parish council objections.

Thinking about it, some of the reasons may stem from small-scale politics, the need to be seen to be objecting etc. However, there's a case that they could raise issues at a local community level - loss of amenity perhaps - that may not be raised by individual householder objections.

Sounds in this case like a local councilor has had his ear bent by Mr Angry rather than anything of real substance.

 

Here's hoping they do not learn about how to write objections .

 

F

[Jeremy Harris]

9 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Here's hoping they do not learn about how to write objections .

 

F

 

 

Things are changing with the introduction of Neighbourhood Plans, though.  Our Parish Council has one, and it was drawn up by them, with wide consultation with everyone in the parish, including several public meetings where options were discussed.

 

This plan identifies areas that may be developed, perhaps with some agreed constraints and areas that cannot be developed.  As such, it give the Parish Council a heck of a lot more authority, as the Neighbourhood Plan forms a part of the local planning policy, the only difference is that it was the parish itself that wrote it, not the local authority (in fact the LA had very little to do with it, things like SSSIs and the EA flood risk areas were of greater significance).

 

Gradually more and more parish councils will have Neighbourhood Plans, it's a part of the process to devolve decision making down to local level.  Our new parish council has applied for funding to write theirs, and I suspect I may well end up getting involved in the process again.

Edited January 3, 2018 by JSHarris

[Temp]

+1

 

I've been on both sides (applying for and opposing applications) and Appeal Inspectors put a lot of weight on formal written plans be it National, Local or Neighbourhood.

 

One concern I have is that a lot of weight is given to the plans because they are subject to public consultation. This holds even if few people know about the consultation and fewer actually read and comment on them. Basically it allows the government to say... Hey look you had your opportunity to object when the plans were put out to consultation.  It's your tough luck if you didn't know about them or read and respond to the consultation.