Member

In a nutshell, these amendments would enable councils to have the flexibility that they need to choose how best to determine planning applications, as we would want democratic institutions to do. Perhaps the Government should look at how developers game the system, which results in slower decision-making than is necessary. Currently, 83% of applications are already decided by officers within local policies and national policy frameworks, and only 17% are deemed necessary to be decided by committee. That is probably the right balance. Let us enable councils to continue to allow their local democracy to thrive and people to have trust in what is going on by having the bright light of a planning committee and a planning report in front of people so that they can see how decisions are made. I beg to move.