Council Leader Paul Arnott will write a letter to the secretary of state outlining the council’s fears about the bill, and will seek endorsement of it from other councils once it has been written.

East Devon council anger at Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Bradley Gerrard www.exmouthjournal.co.uk

Anger has emerged from a Devon council about aspects of a major bill that will impact how planning applications are decided.

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill could see fewer applications decided by councillors at planning committees, with more being decided by planning officers.

It could also give the government the power to set the size of a council’s planning committee, and require its members to undertake specified training.

Members of East Devon District Council’s cabinet expressed dismay at the bill, which has now passed three of the five stages in the House of Commons, before it heads to the House of Lords and, if approved there, it will then become law.

Cllr Todd Olive (Liberal Democrat, Rockbeare and Whimple), said the government’s own environmental watchdog had raised concerns.

The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP)’s chair, Dame Glenys Stacey, said the bill has “fewer protections for nature” than existing law, and that creating “new flexibility without sufficient legal safeguards could see environmental outcomes lessened over time”.

Cllr Olive is concerned about what any new law could mean for places like East Devon’s pebblebed heaths and the Exe estuary.

“I want to ask the leader to work with leaders of other planning authorities and write to the secretary of state [Angela Rayner MP] to set out our position on this appalling bill, but also to brief our MPs,” he said.

Cllr Paul Arnott (Liberal Democrat, Coly Valley), the leader of the council, agreed that writing a letter made sense, but suggested that it drafts one and then seeks supporting signatories, rather than trying to curate a letter in tandem with other councils.

Cllr Richard Jefferies (Liberal Democrat, Tale Vale), portfolio holder for environment (nature and climate) said he felt the bill was “cynical” in its approach that proposed contributions from developers to protect nature but to then take away other ecological protections.

“If there is no net gain, then it doesn’t seem sensible to me,” he said.

Fellow environment portfolio holder Cllr Geoff Jung (Liberal Democrat, Woodbury and Lympstone) said: “There are some very good proposals [in the bill] but some very disturbing proposals too.”

“One classic example is how it will treat habitat mitigation, as at the moment, here and in Teignbridge and Exeter, I think we do a good job as we are local and understand the area.

“But to take that way and give it to Natural England doesn’t make sense; we all know the issues more than these big quangos and taking this out of local peoples’ hands and putting into a national body does seem to be going in the wrong direction.”

Exmouth member Cllr Nick Hookway (Liberal Democrat, Exmouth Littleham) added that the bill was “extremely concerning” and would worry residents about the potential impact on the Exe Estuary.

Some members were irked by the notion that the bill would require councillors to undergo certain training, even though some is already provided by the council.

“The bill mentions training and that if it isn’t completed then a councillor can be prohibited from taking part in the planning committee,” said Cllr Paul Hayward (Independent, Axminster).

“But the MPs who issue these rules that they impose on councillors never seem to apply them to themselves… so if this does happen, then perhaps MPs should have to undertake mandatory training before passing acts of parliament that impact people.”

The cabinet agreed that Cllr Arnott would write a letter to the secretary of state outlining the council’s fears about the bill, and would seek endorsement of it from other councils once it had been written.

Across the 12 Reform-controlled councils, 33 meetings have been cancelled or postponed within the first nine weeks since the election.

Additionally, at least 21 Reform councillors have missed their first meetings, despite the majority of these only having had one meeting to attend in their first month.

[For comparison with Devon, four Reform councillors out of 18, that is 22% or nearly one quarter, have missed the first two meetings in Devon County Council. This looks significantly higher than the average of two councillors per Reform-led councils quoted above.] – Owl

Athena Stavrou  www.independent.co.uk 

Councils taken over by Reform UK have been left in a state of “paralysis” as dozens of key meetings are cancelled and newly elected councillors fail to show up.

Nigel Farage’s party won huge victories in May’s local council elections, gaining control of nine councils and minority control in a further three.

However, opposition councillors have claimed organisation and productivity have been a “shambles” since the election, with some claiming the Reform representatives “do not know what they’re doing”.

Across the 12 Reform-controlled councils, 33 meetings have been cancelled or postponed within the first nine weeks since the election.

Additionally, at least 21 Reform councillors have missed their first meetings, despite the majority of these only having had one meeting to attend in their first month.

The worst-affected councils are Kent and Nottinghamshire, where Reform holds 57 and 39 seats respectively.

In Kent, nine out of the 22 meetings – 40 per cent – scheduled have been cancelled since the election up to July 4. That compares to just 15 per cent in 2024.

These include legally required meetings such as the governance and audit committee, a crucial part of local government structures, ensuring accountability and transparency of the council’s finances.

Other meetings, such as the police and crime panel, were cancelled as membership of the committee was yet to be confirmed – something opposition councillors say suggests their Reform counterparts “are not ready or prepared” for their roles.

In Nottinghamshire, four of the 10 meetings scheduled had been cancelled in the first nine weeks.

These include the governance and ethics committee and the overview committee, which is responsible for scrutinising the operation of the chief executive’s department.

Opposition councillor in Kent, Rich Lehmann, said the cancellations were “shocking” and made him question whether Reform was capable of leading the council.

“Reform did better than anyone expected, and clearly better than they expected as well,” he told The Independent.

“There’s a general feeling among opposition councillors that a number of elected councillors are not ready or able to attend committee meetings that take place during the day.

“The fact they’ve not even named who is sitting on committees suggests they are having trouble filling committee places and that’s why they’re being cancelled.

“No one knows what’s going on. There’s a lot of confusion.”

Kent is the home of Reform UK’s first Elon Musk-style Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) unit, which has been set up to look at “wasteful spending” in councils.

The announcement on Sunday evening came as a surprise to many councillors, Mr Lehmann said, who claimed the move was a “barrage of distraction” from the “paralysis” the council is in.

It is understood that Reform UK councillors have chosen to cancel meetings with the intention of rescheduling them once they are more prepared. It is also understood that as the meetings were scheduled by the previous administration, they were not scheduled to the new Reform council’s timetable.

In Nottinghamshire, the opposition Conservative group said the cancellations had sparked “serious concerns about leadership, accountability, and the future of local service”.

“This is a shambolic start from Reform,” said Sam Smith, leader of the Conservatives.

“Scrapping every key meeting in their first full month in charge is not only reckless—it’s dangerous. This puts public services at risk and shows just how unprepared Reform really are.”

He added: “There’s no excuse for this. They should be in their offices, speaking to officers, and getting to grips with their jobs. Instead, the car park is empty, and the council is effectively leaderless. This is what happens when you elect people who had no plan and no idea what the job involved.”

While local councils are independent bodies responsible for their own decisions, it is understood that the government expects them to operate within the law and to hold meetings in order to deliver for residents.

Kent County Council said some meetings, such as planning committees, were scheduled on an ‘if required’ basis, and were cancelled because there were no applications requiring an immediate decision.

A spokesperson said: “Regarding the changes to the meeting calendar, a number of meetings were squeezed into June due to the election and induction period preventing them from being held in May as would be the case in a non-election year. Because there are no time-sensitive issues due at these June meetings, consideration is being given to deferring business to relevant July meetings to make best use of member and officer time.”

The Independent contacted Nottinghamshire Council’s new Reform leader Mick Barton for comment. He did not respond but told Local Democracy Reporters the comments are “political rhetoric from the opposition”.

He said: “That’s absolute nonsense. We’ve only been here three weeks. We’re still setting policies, we’re having weekly cabinet meetings with officers to find out what we’re going to be doing going forward.”