Shropshire planning 'abyss' fear over slow decisions

In four years Shropshire Council has fallen from mid-table to one of the 15 slowest in making decisions on planning applications with small businesses and home builders having to wait several months, instead of the target of eight weeks.

Andy Boddington, Shropshire councillor for Ludlow North and a member of the south planning committee, has called the situation "disgraceful" and says it is damaging Shropshire's economy.

He claims the council is "in denial" about its "miserable" performance and was raising questions at a full meeting of Shropshire Council.

He said: "Back in 2010, we weren't the best performer in planning but we were a long way from bumping along the bottom. Now we are plummeting towards the abyss of planning failure and are among the worst planning authorities in the country. It's a truly shocking statistic.

"Shropshire Council has failed to invest in its planning operation. And it's because the council is beholden by big developers and big businesses, not the small builders and entrepreneurs that make this county tick.

"We are denying villages vitality. We are allowing market towns to stagnate and we are denying the county the funding that new housing brings with it through the Government's New Homes Bonus, business rates, council tax and the community infrastructure levy."

He said the full extent of the problem had gone unchallenged because Shropshire does well on major applications that tend to hit the headlines, dealing with all of them within 13 weeks or by a deadline agreed with the developer, which kept the county out of the Government's special measures scheme.

But for developments under 0.5 hectares, or office, industrial or retail developments under one hectare, there were now only 10 other authorities worse than Shropshire.

He said: "We have gone from being middle range to being at a point of failure where small developers have to wait several months to get a decision on developments that should be made within weeks.

"It means that we are discriminating against small developers who build the small plots of housing that we need in our villages and market towns.

"In Shropshire, particularly in the south of Shropshire, these small developers and local landowners are the lifeblood of our economy.

"By delaying giving them consent, we are denying people the homes they need and the places they need to work."

But Malcolm Price, Shropshire Council's cabinet member for planning, housing and commissioning defended the authority's performance, saying: "Speed of decision taking is one measure of performance but taken in isolation it is not a qualitative measure."

He added the National Planning Performance policy had "moved away" from the eight-week target on minor applications as a measure of performance and 96 per cent of applications were determined in a time-frame agreed with developers on an individual basis. He said: "With regards to improving performance on minor planning applications, the service is further refining business processes to increase capacity. The option of increasing staffing during periods of increased demand on a flexible basis is also being explored."