At its meeting on 5 July, Scrutiny Committee agreed to review existing service plans ahead of the formal budget setting process, and specifically to receive presentations on existing service plans at its forthcoming meetings prior to February 2019. The review will continue with consideration of the current service plans for the Planning & Planning Policy Service and Streetscene inviting the Portfolio Holders for Strategic Development, Development Management and the Environment, Strategic Lead and Service Leads, to attend.
This item is the third of a series of reviews of existing Service Plans which may result in recommendations from members related to service planning and budget setting in the future.
Minutes:
At its meeting on 5 July, Scrutiny Committee agreed to review existing service plans ahead of the formal budget setting process, and specifically to receive presentations on existing service plans at its forthcoming meetings prior to February 2019. The review continues with consideration of the current service plans for the Planning & Planning Policy Service .
The Chairman stressed that questions and comments should be about the service plan, and should not go into planning and strategic planning issues where the remit rests outside the Scrutiny Committee.
Comments and questions included the following;
Question relating to Item 9 of the Service Plan. Are there lessons to be learnt about appeals which are lost? Ed Freeman confirmed that there are always lessons to be learnt about appeals and there is a monthly report to Development Management Committee (DMC) and an Annual Report on the issue. The performance of EDDC is on a par with other Local Authorities, with approximately two thirds of appeals being dismissed and one third being upheld.
Question relating to Item 15 of the Service Plan. Where can the Brownfield Land Register be accessed? Response, on the website.
Question relating to Items on page 10 of the Service Plan – building control and high quality homes. Which of the big developers use their own building control services, and does quality suffer as a result? Ed Freeman confirmed that the Council do not have building control in every development across the District but do have a good market share. In some developments, inspections are not as thorough or as frequent when private companies inspect, compared to when the Council do. However, all developers have to comply with legislation and standards. In the case of unhappy customers, following Grenfell, there has been a review of Building Standards and inspections, so changes to legislation are anticipated.
Question relating to Items on page 11 of the Service Plan – District Design Guide. Is there a move to ensure minimum home space standards are adopted? The response was that the Design Guide cannot deal with this issue which must be addressed through the Local Development Plan, which will be reviewed next year, and through similar documents like the Cranbrook Development Plan.
Question relating to whether the Design Guide will be completed by late 2018. The response was that the Design Guide has been delayed due to the officer resource being committed to the production of the Heritage Strategy, which has been completed on time. The Design Guide should be ready before March 2019 and ready to send out for consultation.
Question relating to flood mitigation measures. Exmouth continue to have problems including sewerage entering people’s homes. With heavy rainfall and high tides, water cannot run off to the Exe and so flooding the streets, hence the reason for a Tidal Defence Scheme which will cost £13m. The system was constructed in Victorian times and cannot keep up with new developments, but 700+ houses are planned for the area. A conversation is required with South West Water (SWW) involving Planning. Ed Freeman confirmed that he would be happy to attend a meeting with SWW. He had recently attended a meeting of Lympstone’s Flood Resilience Group with the Environment Agency and SWW where it was explained that there was no action they could take. SWW are required to connect developments and create the necessary infrastructure for this, but not to challenge or comment on applications, so they also end up picking up the consequences.
Question on what would be different between the existing Service Plan and the one in development for 2019/20. Ed Freeman confirmed that they will continue to deal with business as usual, but also undertake a number of policy and service improvements. This will include a Local Plan Review and progress on the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP) mid to late 2019. The Service is also hoping to encourage diversity in housing delivery. The government is encouraging more housebuilding and EDDC wants to encourage more self-build and small to medium house builders who are more likely to diversify and produce high quality properties. The District needs a mix of housing stock and additional care places, and homes for young people and older people with mobility difficulties. Alongside this will be a proactive approach to unlocking sites and bringing them forward for such developments.
The service had attempted to recruit a Development Delivery Manager unsuccessfully but are now planning to use specialist agents to do so.
In terms of service improvements, there are planned improvements to the website and increasing public access through better software, and improving the quality of plans available to view, and generally improve planning business online.
The National Planning Policy Framework has changed and the Design Guides need to catch up.
The chair asked whether there would be additional funding bids for staffing next year. Ed Freeman confirmed that there would be no new bids but with a caveat that resources were put aside for two officers to support the GESP team two years ago and since this arrangement was coming to an end, a request had been made to extend this for a further two years to complete the work of the GESP.
Questions relating to gaps in services. Ed Freeman stated that efforts to resolve access to the S106 officer and information on monies for Parish Councils would be addressed by the setting up of a public portal. The portal needs further work by Strata presently, but it is hoped that Parish Councils will be able to log onto the portal and bring up a table which will calculate how much money is involved in their area. This will reduce the demand on the officer’s time so that they can work with local councils more closely, and it is anticipated that this will be in operation next spring. The transfer of data into the new back office system that will feed information to the portal should be completed before the end of the year. In the meantime, the Section 106 officer is trying to balance her time between completing this work and engaging with the town and parish councils when she can. There are two officers currently working respectively on S106 monies and on Community Infrastructure Levy (CiL).
Question relating to the length of time to download planning documents. This is a technical issue which will depend both on EDDC systems but also the Broadband download speeds available to the user.
Question relating to S106 monies. Can it be lost if it is not used within a certain period of time? Ed Freeman confirmed that this indicated the importance of making the data as accurate as possible. Whilst timeframes vary in agreements, the risk is that money disappears if it is not used after five years, but this is dependent upon developers asking for the money back. Ed could not recall a developer doing so.
The Chair asked if Ed Freeman considered the KPIs to be appropriate for the service. Ed said that they were largely set by government and the KPIs reflect what is required, and are, therefore, appropriate.
The Chair wanted to record the thanks of the Committee to Ed Freeman and Mark Williams for attending the meeting and discussing the Service plan.
RECOMMENDED to the Service Lead for Planning
1. That the Service Plan for 2019/20 will make reference to appropriate actions in relation to trees.
2. That there will be an end date recorded for inputting data onto the system in relation to S106 monies.
3. That the Service Lead will take an action to explore the risk of losing unused S106 funds with a view to identifying blockages and speeding up the processes involved, and preventing long delays in future.