” … Planning departments across the peninsula have been cut by up to half, and Prof Balch said the axe was likely to fall again. One planning officer told him she had a caseload of 91 applications, which had to be determined within eight weeks – more than two a day.
“How can you visit the site, prepare paperwork and do all the consultation?
“The changes may not be bad in principle, but you will see unintended consequences. You are probably going to see more legal challenges from a system which is running on three-quarters empty.”
Who are we doing planning for? Is it for the landowner and applicant, or is it for the community and society?”
Prof Balch said that there was some suspicion that the government was “teeing up” the planning system to be outsourced.
Prof Balch warned that decisions were likely to become more inconsistent because the government had introduced more ambiguity into the system.
“In Teignbridge virtually all the barn conversions go through on prior approval. In Wiltshire they have hardly approved any,” he said. …”
Read more: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Countryside-risk-planning-control-ditched-8216/story-24609710-detail/story.html#ixzz3JuPHdRgG
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