About Planning
There are 4 main departments within the Planning Service:
Development Control and Enforcement
The Development Control and Enforcement section provides a service to all four neighbourhoods and their associated Neighbourhood Committees as well as the Development Control Committee.
Dealing with 2000-2500 development applications throughout the Borough, including planning applications, listed building consents, advertisements etc.
Handling around 100 subsequent appeals per annum (via Public Inquiries, Hearings, and Written Representations) where permission has been refused.
Providing general planning advice to Councillors, members of the public, businesses and other sections of the Council.
Investigating compaints where it is considered a breach of planning control has occurred (the current caseload being 250 cases).
Serving formal notices (including Enforcement Notices, Breach of Condition Notices, Planning Contravention Notices, etc.) and pursuing legal proceedings where appropriate in respect of breaches of planning control.
Planning Policy
The Planning policy team is responsible for producing land use policies and guidance that are used in determining planning applications and thus guiding future development in the borough.
The purpose of the Unitary Development Plan (UDP) is to provide a strategic and local planning framework for guiding future developments in the borough.
It contains detailed policies to guide the Council in exercising its development control powers and policies both for the protection and improvement of the physical environment and specific proposals for sites where the Council wishes to encourage development.
The Government has introduced changes to the Planning system which requires the council to produce a Local Development Framework (LDF) to replace the Unitary Development Plan (UDP).
The first stage in this process was to produce a Local Development Scheme (LDS, available from the LDF page); this sets out the content and the timetable for the production of the Local Development Framework.
More detailed guidance is also provided in the form of Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) and Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD).
This can take the form of either development briefs for specific sites where development is expected, or guidance relating to a specific topic area such as house extensions or shopfront design.
In order to keep the planning policy framework up to date it is necessary to monitor land use changes in the borough and to assess the success of the policies themselves in achieving the strategic aims as stated in Part 1 of the UDP.
The Annual Monitoring Report presents the Councils findings.
Conservation and Urban Design
The Conservation & Design Team is dedicated to preserving and enhancing the historic built environment and ensuring a high quality of urban design in all parts of the built environment.
We aim to sustain a sense of local distinctiveness within both the old and new parts of the Borough that have been covered by built form.
We do not have a central role in Nature Conservation matters.
Please help us achieve our aims.
Our motto's are:-
Repair our historic fabric - don't replace it!
and
Design new buildings to be our historic buildings of the future!
Our functions include:-
- Designating and managing Conservation Areas;
- Managing the Councils duties for Listed Buildings;
- Identifying potential Listed Buildings and submitting "Spot Listing" applications;
- Protecting and promoting other historic built fabric (Other Conservation);
- Advising on the conservation and design elements of planning and other types of applications, we work closely with Development Control;
- Formulating Council policy for the historic built environment and urban design matters, we work closely with Planning Policy;
- Promoting good conservation and urban design practice on Council managed land, we work closely with other Council service providers including Highways, Parks and Market services.
Building Control
The Building Control department ensures that building works comply with the requirements of the Building Regulations and Building Acts.
For more information on Building Control please visit the Building Control Homepage.