A fait accompli received from South Norfolk which relies on on line viewing of plans , assuming we all have fast Broadband. You will note the ridiculously short implementation time and the lack of consultation
I personally do not think this is an improvement !! There is no seperate room at Wymondham Town to view these plans as yet and none planned and note the introduction of a planning charge for household applications.
If you have concerns please let your District Council know , and copy in your District Councillor
Dear Parish/Town Clerk
Please see below some service improvements we are introducing and which will come into effect from 2nd January 2016.
Consultations on planning applications - paperless
You may recall a year ago we contacted you as the last remaining consultee to be receiving paper planning documents from us. We agreed at this time to send reduced size A3 or A4 plans and in some cases for larger planning applications, plans were copied onto CD. This seems to have worked very well. In our continued efforts to become more efficient and speed up our planning application service we would now like to move to electronic consultations and implement our policy of using digital communication whenever we can. You are currently the only statutory consultees that receives paper consultations and we think that receiving your notification letter via email will make it quicker and easier for you.
From 2 January 2016 Parish/Town Councils will no longer be sent a paper copy of plans submitted for a planning application with your consultee notification letter. You will still receive your notification letter and return form for your comments. This will be emailed to you with the letter as an attachment. You will need to download from the South Norfolk website any plans you wish to display at your council meetings. You will be able to see from the weekly list which applications have been submitted and should you wish to be sent copies of paper plans for any larger major applications, then you should notify us and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
Charges for pre-application householder enquiry advice (from Jan 2016)
In relation to pre application advice, we will be introducing a charge for householder pre-application enquiries. A charge already applies to enquiries about commercial properties, but as of next year, questions regarding householder enquiries will be subject to a £40.00 fee.
There will be no charge if someone is simply asking if they need planning permission, charges will only apply if they are asking for a planning officer’s opinion on whether their application will be successful or not.
Seeking pre-application advice reduces the likelihood of submitting an invalid application and helps the applicant understand how planning policies and other requirements affect their proposals.
Please let me know if you have any questions or queries regarding any of the above
Wishing you all a restful Christmas
Kim Woodhouse
Support and Innovation Manager
t 01508 533846 e kwoodhouse@s-norfolk.gov.uk www.south-norfolk.gov.uk
If they dont have enough money why dont they say so or are they that scared of upsetting th Govt? Why try and tell us it is an improvement?
Dont the planning people already charge for everything anyway but that actually doesn't matter beacuse they do such a fantastic job already so paying more is not a problem ......
A fantastic job... that's debatable. Doesn't the public pay for this service in their council taxes anyway?
A consultation period of just one weekend and a few days before Christmas! This must be an all time record. It just shows that consultations are not taken seriously by this council.
When the district council decided they were changing their service provision to online viewings only, they should have ensured that public viewing facilities were in place at the town council offices first. This is a backward step in the planning dept's public service provision and biased against those who do not have a computer and those with a poor broadband connection.
This was debated at Town Planning last night. Unfortunately the District Councillor was not interested in my complaint/views re slow broadband , lack of consultation etc and not for the first time clearly regarded his role as District Councillor as superior to that of being a Town Councillor and representing the views of the electorate for the Town was obviously very low on his agenda, so was not going to take any views along these lines back to the District.
How these changes can be spun as 'improvement' beggars belief .
I have made a formal complaint to South Norfolk about this change. I do not anticipate a positive response. However it was agreed that a link will be set up to view any matters of concern in the future directly from the website at the time of the planning meeting ONLY. There is no public computer interface at the Council although it was suggested that the Library could be used or you could go to Long Stratton to view the plans. If you have concerns please do therefore attend the planning meeting and let me know if you intend to do so.
For those of you who are fans of the Hitchhikers guide, this reminds me of the destruction of the Earth by the Vogons, who did so because there had had no planning objections at the offices located in Alpha Centauri by any Earthlings. So the destruction proceeded to make way for the new pan galactic highway unopposed. Yes of course this is extreme but illustrates the point beautifully. How can making access to view plans difficult ,to say the least, more especially if you have no computerand /or p*** poor broadband speeds be an improvement? Apparently it is somehow your fault!
As for charging I could not agree more that it begs the question as to why we pay rates, when here in Spooner row practically all we get from the District Council is our bins emptied.
Oh no, I hope they are not doing that again! At Parish meetings, councillors should represent residents and not be acting in the interests of the district council instead.
The response from South Norfolk with my comments appended in RED Happy for Admin to close this if you think it appropriate
Dear Mr Halls
Thank you for your recent correspondence posted on our website on 31st December 2015.
I am not sure what you have received by way of a letter but to clarify I attach a copy of my email sent to all Town and Parish Clerks.
The new process was presented at the quarterly Town and Parish Council meeting on 10th December where I explained that the Parish and Town Councils were the only statutory consultees who were still sent paper copies of planning applications. The Town and Country Planning Act legislation states that the Local Planning Authority has to make all applications publicly available. We used to do this (before technology and websites) by making them available in our offices for people to come in and view. This facility is still available, although they will now view the documents on our computers in our reception area, helped by our customer services team should they require assistance.
I understand that not all parish and town councils have the facility to make computers available for use by the public, although the libraries do have this facility. Many of our residents view planning application on line and many avail themselves of our on-line consultation system to make their comments to us.
Assumes persons can attend at Long Stratton, drive there and that they have computer access with a download speed other achieved via a tortoise
We have said to parish and town clerks that if they would like to request a copy of a plan (for the larger applications) we would always meet this request. The letter did not quite say this. It said it will try Town Clerks are provided with a weekly list of application that have been registered and can easily identify which applications they would like to see the plans for and a few days later they will receive their formal consultation notification email.
It is not our intention to make things difficult and we are striving to improve our services to our customers and this new way of working will be more efficient and speed up the planning process for all those involved. ( I am sorry but for an Elderly person with no Broadband there is no way this is more efficient and it is more difficult ) The consultees are notified electronically about an application and can view the documents on-line immediately ( see comment above ) without having to wait for the application notification letter and plans to be sent through the post which then gives more time in the statutory consultation period for them to fit it into their meeting cycles but also gives optimum time for them to respond.
If this causes any problems to Wymondham Town Council perhaps you could ask the Clerk to bring his specific difficulties to my attention and I will try to help him further.. ( I think we have a workaround in place but it will undoubtedly make meetings longer and public comment / objection more difficult, so once again not more efficient or an improvement )
With regard to the introduction of pre-application charge of £40 for advice and guidance as to whether a proposal is likely to be successful. As explained in the email to Town/Parish Councils we have already been charging for this service for commercial properties and for those who are enquiring about building a new house within their existing garden, since 1st January 2015. This service has been well used over the past year.
A proposal to extend ( ???) this service ( AT COST !) to householder enquirers was agreed by Cabinet at their meeting on 20th July 2015 to take effect from 1st January 2016. We think it will be helpful to anyone who is considering expanding their homes or making changes and spares them the expense of providing drawings and plans which would have to be submitted should they make a formal planning application. This service also helps the applicant understand how planning policies and other requirements affect their proposals so they can prepare their application in the knowledge that they have received an officer opinion as to the likelihood of their application being successful or not. Seeking pre-application advice also reduces the likelihood of submitting an invalid application and therefore is more efficient for the applicant and for the Planning Service. . ( As this was free previously how is this an improvement? It is easy for Councillors who get free tablets and support to say this )
I would also add that any enquiries we receive about proposed changes to Listed Buildings, Trees or proposed works in a conservation area will still be provided to the enquirer free of charge. As explained in the email to Town/Parish Clerks, if the enquirer is asking whether they require planning permission then this will also not incur a charge.
I hope this answers your concerns in full ( Not not really, but we are never going to agree on this and my real issue is , and has always been that to spin this as an improvement is disingenuous and why not admit that Govt cutbacks are responsible, or is South Norfolk that terrified of Central Govt and pending Local Govt restructure that they have to pretend everything is all wonderful with the ridiculous hope that they will escape unscathed )
Please contact me if I can be of any further assistance and as stated I would be happy to talk to Wymondham Town Council Clerk to see if I can help with any difficulties. Please ask him to contact me and we can discuss further.
I think this correspondence is closed as nothing is going to change is it??
Yours sincerely
Kim Woodhouse
Support and Innovation Manager
t 01508 533846 e kwoodhouse@s-norfolk.gov.uk www.south-norfolk.gov.uk
