Saturday
20
April
Council to charge £30 to talk to a planning officer
03/04/2020 @ 12:34
Powys County Council's planning service is to charge applicants of potential planning applications £30 for Skype or telephone calls with officers as they scale back work on the service during the current crisis.
It comes as the planning service reduces its services and will only accept applications online and not in hard copy format.
Work processing planning applications continues even if it’s not known when the next meeting of Powys County Council’s (PCC) Planning Committee will take place.
The next meeting for the Planning Committee had been scheduled for Thursday, 9 April, but along with all other PCC public meetings, they have been cancelled, due to the Coronovirus emergency,
PCC have scaled back their work to just concentrate on core statutory services.
In their advice note to applicants the Planning Service say that they are not receiving any applications made on paper or hard copy.
They say that any applications that arrived after March 20 will be dealt with after the restrictions are eased and “normal service” has resumed.
However, the department is still able to receive applications electronically and that discussions about them can still happen.
But, no public consultation or site visits will be taking place and new applications will be only be decided until staff are able to complete all the necessary work.
Also, for now enforcement issues can only be registered and then put on hold.
This is because staff will not be able to conduct site visits to see if planning law is being flouted.
An exception to this is staff visits can be justified as enforcement action is needed on violations that impact on”essential” or “critical” council work.
Potential applicants can still ask for advice before they submit an application, but this will be be done through telephone or a Skype meetings with planning officer.
But this will cost an extra £30.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak the process which allows councillors to have the committee decide contentious applications in their ward was suspended for six months.
This followed a vote at the last planning meeting on March 19.
The core service areas that PCC are now concentrating on are:
Social care
Childcare hubs
Public protection
Business support
Waste collections
Housing repairs
Communications
It comes as the planning service reduces its services and will only accept applications online and not in hard copy format.
Work processing planning applications continues even if it’s not known when the next meeting of Powys County Council’s (PCC) Planning Committee will take place.The next meeting for the Planning Committee had been scheduled for Thursday, 9 April, but along with all other PCC public meetings, they have been cancelled, due to the Coronovirus emergency,
PCC have scaled back their work to just concentrate on core statutory services.
In their advice note to applicants the Planning Service say that they are not receiving any applications made on paper or hard copy.
They say that any applications that arrived after March 20 will be dealt with after the restrictions are eased and “normal service” has resumed.
However, the department is still able to receive applications electronically and that discussions about them can still happen.
But, no public consultation or site visits will be taking place and new applications will be only be decided until staff are able to complete all the necessary work.
Also, for now enforcement issues can only be registered and then put on hold.
This is because staff will not be able to conduct site visits to see if planning law is being flouted.
An exception to this is staff visits can be justified as enforcement action is needed on violations that impact on”essential” or “critical” council work.
Potential applicants can still ask for advice before they submit an application, but this will be be done through telephone or a Skype meetings with planning officer.
But this will cost an extra £30.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak the process which allows councillors to have the committee decide contentious applications in their ward was suspended for six months.
This followed a vote at the last planning meeting on March 19.
The core service areas that PCC are now concentrating on are:
Social care
Childcare hubs
Public protection
Business support
Waste collections
Housing repairs
Communications
By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service and by MyNewtown Editorial
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