Planning Bill
5:00 pm
Sir Simon Milton: I did not hear the RTPI evidence, but I know that it is hostile to politicians getting involved in planning matters. Local member review boards are the right mechanism. It is ridiculous to assume that councillors are qualified to take decisions on very complex major developments but not competent to take decisions on minor planning matters that had been delegated to officers on which there is an appeal. So there is no issue there about the skills or capacity of elected councillors to do the job.
I do not accept that councils would automatically rubber-stamp the decisions that had been taken by officers. That is not the experience of how planning committees work. Councillors operate pretty independently. I think that they would be quite capable of assessing the evidence that was put before them by the appellant and of taking a de novo decision on whether the right initial decision had been taken. That has more legitimacy than having a planning inspector from Bristol come in and seek to take a decision without any real knowledge of local context.