Subscribe to trusted local news
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
15
Nov
Residents deserve better than the “diabolical” planning service, says councillor
Residents deserve better than the “diabolical” planning service currently provided by North Yorkshire Council, a councillor has told colleagues.
Cllr Angus Thompson, who represents the North Richmondshire division, criticised the authority’s handling of planning applications at a meeting of the Richmond area committee this week.
The Conservative councillor said:
I make no apology at all for banging on about the state of play in the planning system within this council.
I don’t think we’re being fair to constituents. I don’t think we’re being fair to the public.
We’re taking money from them and we are delivering an absolutely diabolical service more often than not.
The councillor said he had no criticism of the decision made by the planning service, either by officers or committees
He added:
It’s the actual operational things — if you try and ring them after we finish this meeting, there’ll be nobody answering the phone. That’s every day of the year, not just today.
If it’s me that emails them, they perhaps would respond, but if a member of the public emails them, nobody responds more often than not.
I agree that there’s a national shortage of planning officers, but why can’t we have some clerical staff, for example?
The councillor said the area committee only dealt with issues in the Richmond parliamentary constituency.
But he added:
This sort of thing seems to be going across the county. Everyone’s up in arms about it in other planning offices.
In response to the criticism, Cllr Mark Crane, executive member for open to business, whose role includes the oversight of the planning department, said he was aware of the councillor’s concerns.
He said:
Angus has made his views known to me more than once about how planning applications are not being turned around as quickly as we would like and he is right, but at the moment we’re something like 15 planning officers down.
I do think that is in line with, sadly, every other local authority that our boundary touches.
That being said, the positive thing is that we are reaching the government targets and last year we exceeded them. Every government target we’ve got, we have exceeded.
He added:
We are aware of issues and there have been particular issues in Richmond. We are seeking to address them. We have recruited more staff in the last months, but those people have to give notice to where they work at the moment and won’t start for a couple of months.
But I think we’ve recruited nine new people so we’re hoping that with the recruitment of those extra planning offices that things will continue to improve.
1