Question
I am a member of the Earley Town Council Planning Committee and we are quite often receiving complaints from residents that they have not been informed by Wokingham Borough Council Development Control about any planning application near to their property. This matter has been ongoing for some time and the Chair of Earley Town Panning Committee has written in the past on this matter, but this is still happening.
Please can the Executive Member look into this matter and resolve it for all our residents so they are informed and therefore able to raise their concerns on a planning application affecting them?
Minutes:
Question
I am a member of the Earley Town Council Planning Committee and we are quite often receiving complaints from residents that they have not been informed by Wokingham Borough Council Development Control about any planning application near to their property. This matter has been ongoing for some time and the Chair of Earley Town Panning Committee has written in the past on this matter, but this is still happening.
Please can the Executive Member look into this matter and resolve it for all our residents so they are informed and therefore able to raise their concerns on a planning application affecting them?
Answer
Government regulations set out the Council’s requirement for public consultation when a planning application is received and states that the Council must either: place a site notice on either the application site or write to adjoining owners or occupiers.
The Council consults in line with the regulations and its own Statement of Community Involvement which is available on the Council’s website. Residents are provided with 21 days for comments. We are working on a new “Information for Neighbours Guide” because there have been a lot of changes, especially around Certificate of Lawfulness, prior approval and PE rights and we are currently working on that. Once that is available it will be going out to all towns and parishes and Members and it will be updated on our website.
In addition, while site notices are only required by law for major applications for development and a number of small applications, the Council sends out to the applicant a site notice and requests that this is displayed, but that is voluntarily and we cannot insist on this. Notification is also sent to Ward Members and the relevant town or parish council, as you know, and all relevant documentation is displayed on the Council’s website. The Council also publishes an updated list of applications which are validated every week and this is on our website.
Even where a resident has not been directly consulted by the Council about an application, they are able to respond and update their comments on our website to determine the application.
We sent out last year over 10,000 neighbour notifications and in my conversation with Officers today they have spoken to Royal Mail and we are going to do some spot checks. I have asked them to start in Earley just to check whether there seems to be an issue with these going out and if we can track them so that we can look at where we think these may be going wrong. A lot of times when we get people saying that they have not had it; it is because they live too far away from the application site. But rest assured we are looking into and this and if necessary we will produce some necessary videos etc so that people can understand what is available.