The government is planning from September 2026 dramatically to curtail the power of planning committees in making decisions about development. So, what are these and why might this matter?

Most decisions about planning matters are decided by planning officers. In about five per cent of cases, however – what qualifies for such treatment varies from district to district – these can be “called in” to a planning committee. This comprises about nine elected members proportionate to the political split who take evidence from officers, applicants, opponents, ward members and parish councils and then debate and vote on the matter. Officers attend and speak but don’t vote.

In general, under the current system, the larger and more contentious an application is, the more likely it is to go to committee.

In West Berkshire, an application will take this route if:

• there are at least ten objections and the officers are minded to approve it; or
• if a ward member calls it in and the Planning Committee Chair agrees; or
• if an officer calls it in and the Planning Committee Chair agrees; or
• if West Berkshire Council is itself the applicant. 

The government’s current proposals would involve abolishing these except for the most major applications and then only if both the elected Planning Committee Chair and the officer in charge of planning agree. If, therefore, the officers don’t want an application, no matter how major, to be considered by elected members, it won’t be.

There are plenty of arguments on both sides as to whether planning committees are an obstacle to development or a reasonable and important demonstration of nuanced local interest. Although I think too many matters go to committee, I take the latter view. However, a more important point is what the government is trying to accomplish.

The planning system is complicated: just how complicated I attempted to describe in this separate article. This is mainly the result of successive waves of legislation and regulation, as well as lengthy and technical local plans, all devised both to facilitate and to control development.

It’s also trying to do two things at the same time: address both the needs of the state and the concerns of the locality. The contradiction has not been resolved, indeed is getting worse. The current changes suggest that the current direction of travel is towards centralisation, despite the promises made about devolution.

Reforms to the planning system are often proposed or hinted at. They frequently involve demonising a particular participant . Recently these have included nimby residents and councillors, anti-development lobbyists, bats, newts (ie nature generally): and now planning committees.

In fact, none of these are particular obstacles to getting the right decision made. Land-banking by developers, the high hope value of property, developers’ own timescales for building out, the problems of raising finance, bickering between developers on joint sites and skills shortages all are at least as important. These matters, however, are largely beyond the government’s power to influence. It can, however, blame the bats and curtail the committees: so it does.

Sending something to a planning committee can – assuming no backlogs – add a month or so to an application’s progress. This is not long in planning terms. However, it must be admitted that an appeal against a refusal can add perhaps six months. I was therefore curious to know if a decision by a committee was more likely to lead to a successful appeal by the applicant than one made by the normal method of delegated powers by officers.

I’ve asked this question of West Berkshire Council and await the response. However, thanks to some research done by an expert PP reader for a nearby district (Test Valley) where the figures are easily available online, it seems that between 2010 and 2026, the Council lost about 28% of all the appeals brought against its decisions: and lost about 43% of those which were initially determined by planning committees.

This would suggest that decisions made by committee were about 50% more likely to be found to be wrong by the planning inspector. This might seem to suggest an overwhelming reason to abolish them. This argument does, however, have some profound weaknesses (aside from the fact that this is made from a sample of just one authority).

• Firstly, the Test Valley committees were right in a majority of cases.
• Secondly, as mentioned above, planning committees are not (as this change seems to suggest) the principal reason for planning delays.
• Thirdly, there are improvements to the system that are within the power of planning authorities to implement. These include better training for members, a higher threshold for calling in applications and a greater than 50% majority if the officers’ decision is to be challenged. (West Berkshire has already made improvements, including enebling ward-member call-ins to be rescinded if the matter of concern has been addressed, something that wasn’t previously possible). Such changes could have been mandated by the government for an experimental period to see if the system worked better, however “worked better” is defined.
• Finally, there’s the important but often derided question of local involvement. Local councillors are elected by residents to represent their interests. They can’t block every unwelcome proposal as there’s a local plan’s policies, site allocations and overarching government regulations to follow. However, not every application is correct, at all or as it’s presented and aspects of it need to be tested. Planning officers aren’t infallible. it’s true that committees can at times make over-emotive decisions: they can also bring a level of nuance and local knowledge to a decision which, even if it’s passed, can lead to beneficial variations or additional conditions. It’s another check in an increasingly centralised system and one we’re about to lose.

My main worry is…well, all of the above: also the fact that there seems no clear definition of what problem this change is going to solve nor how its impact will be measured. One thing’s for sure: the government can say, particularly at election time, that “we’ve taken decisive action in the interests of the British people to remove delays to the need for much-needed homes to be built.”

There’s another risk. Planning committees are a visible and participatory way by which important decisions can be scrutinised. They may not always go the way objectors want but at least it can’t be argued that local communities and their representatives have had no say. That argument will be all too easy to make under the proposed arrangements.

The result is likely to be a higher level of cynisism about and a lower level of engagement with local councils on all matters – including ones on which residents can make a difference, providing they feel that the matter hasn’t already been decided behind closed doors.

It may be that legislation when published will still admit that elected members and parish councils can have some role to play in decisions rather than merely being consultees. If this unwelcone change is introduced, I would feel happier if my elected representatives were able to express their concerns directly to the officers making the decision, even if they no longer had a vote.

Whether this reform will make any difference is doubtful. The under-funded system will continue to labour under its many often contradictory pressures, producing results more slowly than many would wish for a host of reasons; most of which are beyond Whitehall’s power, and certainly beyond its will, to satisfactorily address. Never mind, though – it will have taken “decisive action”. Whether this action is actually addressing an important part of the problem is, in presentational terms, perhaps of secondary importance.

Brian Quinn
brian@pennypost.org.uk