More objections will be required for future planning applications before they are referred to council planning committees following a decision taken at last night's full council meeting.
Currently a planning application that receives two or more objections will be referred to the local Planning Board by council officers, but this threshold is being increased to eight.
The cost saving measure is estimated to cut the number of applications considered by committees from 179 to 75 in a year and result in a saving of £27,000 in 2011/2012.
Council officers say that at least ten London borough have a higher threshold than that which is being introduced in Greenwich, or they leave referral at the discretion of officers and members.
Conservative councillors voted against the plans, with Cllr Alex Wilson suggesting the plans wait til the Government's Localism Bill has been published - expected to make many changes to local planning rules - and Cllr Geoff Brighty questioning whether applications could be dealt with in a timely manner if the number of meetings were being reduced.
Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Peter Brooks, backed the plan and said that the proposals could be reviewed at the council's AGM in May.
what do these changes mean? will it mean it will be harder for people to seek planning permission??
Hello Matt – It won’t make it harder to seek planning permission. What it will do is mean that it will require more people to object to a planning application for it to be considered by a committee of councillors rather than planning officers. The net result of this should be that less applications are referred to committee and therefore less committee meetings will be held which they estimate will save £27,000 over a year.
Thanks Rob