Issue - meetings

Report of Cabinet Member for Planning and Building Control, Councillor Mike Collins

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    the list of SPGs, SPDs and the Urban Design Concept Statements informal guidance notes set out in Table 1 at paragraph 3.5 of this report are formally revoked and withdrawn from publication

The Cabinet Member for Planning and Building Control said this report is the result of a huge amount of work by the planning policy team to revoke out-of-date and superseded planning guidance notes, statements  and documents.  He said the launch of a new CBC website has provided to opportunity to ensure that everything is current and valid.  The report lists all the documents being revoked, and those being retained will be publicly available on the new website

He thanked officers John Spurling and Daniel O’Neill for their hard work.

Members welcomed and supported the opportunity to tidy up and streamline planning guidance and documents, as planning is essential to the shaping of the town.  They also made the following points:

-       it is a constant bugbear that many on-line documents are not up to date or withdrawn when so longer needed – not just at CBC but also true of central government websites.  This is a great initiative,  particularly important as we enter an age of Gen AI, where people use that to ask questions rather than looking at the actual documents;

-       SPGs and SPDs are really helpful in the planning process, and it is interesting to see what is being revoked, including the fire station and police station.  Could these not automatically drop off the system once the particular scheme or building is complete?

-       CBC is proactive in producing guidance notes, particularly the Climate Change SPD, which make a big difference.  The planning team should be congratulated for being ahead of the game with this.

The Cabinet Member for Planning and Building Control thanked Members for the positive comments.  He didn’t know if guidance and documents are removed once a scheme is complete, and wondered if this is something that can be looked at across the council.  He said he is a great advocate of benchmarking,  and senior officers always use best practice from similar authorities to build on; this is why CBC is so successful in some of its initiatives.

RESOLVED THAT:

1.    the list of SPGs, SPDs and the Urban Design Concept Statements informal guidance notes set out in Table 1 at paragraph 3.5 of this report are formally revoked and withdrawn from publication