Planning Committee of Claygate Parish Council

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July 2025

To answer any questions from members of the public.
The following question was asked:
The planning committee puts a lot of effort into reviewing each Claygate planning application, whether it comes from a resident wishing to construct a simple extension or a property developer hoping to build multiple homes on green belt land.
• But it has no obligation to do so. Examining planning applications is not part of the charter between the parish council and Elmbridge.
• Indeed, it is duplicating the work of Elmbridge planning officers who also review every planning application and have the ultimate say on whether each application is permitted or turned down. If our planning committee and the Elmbridge planning officer disagree on an application, it seems that the planning officer always wins. The parish council has the right to have its opinion on any planning application considered by Elmbridge, but then so does every Claygate resident. Given that the pay-off for all your effort is so low, I'm amazed that you carry on.
• I believe Elmbridge has told the parish council that it has no plans before it is terminated to reinstate the arrangement whereby an objection by the parish council to a planning application would mean that the application had to be reviewed by a committee of Elmbridge councillors.
• At any other tier of local government, or any commercial organisation where resource is tight, such a degree of redundancy would not be tolerated.
• When questioned about its insistence on reviewing every planning application, the planning committee's explanations have been threefold:
  1. Firstly, that the committee consists of unpaid volunteers, with the implication that they can spend their time how they wish.
  2. Secondly that, though unqualified, the planning committee may identify an issue that the Elmbridge staff officer might otherwise miss.
  3. And thirdly, there seems to be a claim of an educational benefit: the argument seems to be that our planning committee should continue duplicating Elmbridge staff officer work in order to keep its own skills alive, just in case such skills are suddenly needed in two years' time when the new unitary authority is in place.

But if the planning committee needs to keep its skills alive, why is it considering delegating this task to AI software?

  • If the parish council pays to employ an AI machine to evaluate planning applications, the training argument vanishes, and the parish council would simply be paying for an AI program to produce output which Elmbridge would again overrule.
  • If any tier of government should be buying such software, it ought to be Elmbridge.
  • The parish council is meant to be a focal point for residents, not a mouthpiece for the views of robots.

Cllr Collon responded as follows:
It’s not the Act, but an Order made under a power conferred by the Act on the Secretary of State: the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, SI 2015/595. Article 25 is the relevant article. You will see that it requires parish councils to submit their representations, or say they will not be submitting representations, within 21 days. Since we only meet every 28 days, for a week of applications each month we cannot comply with this deadline. However in practice the deadline is almost invariably much longer, and when it is not, we ask EBC for an extension which they always grant.

You say that the planning officers always have the last word, and so they do, because that is what the law prescribes. The only exceptions are when an application is referred to the Planning Committee or a Sub-Committee, or if it goes to appeal. And soon they will have the last word even more often. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, now wending its way through Parliament (it has gone through the Commons and is currently in Committee in the Lords — the first day was yesterday) has a provision (currently clause 51, though the number will change) allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations on what should be decided by planning officers and what can go to committees. So early next year Angela Rayner will be telling our Elmbridge Councillors:

(a) that they can’t decide anything unless they have had training, and
(b) that even then there are very few cases that they can keep to themselves; the planning officers will almost always have the last word.

The idea is to speed up the planning process, and so it would, except that the Government (in the shape of the same Angela Rayner) has introduced the Devolution Bill which, when passed, will uproot the whole of local government, planning included.

(extract from Planning Committee meeting, 17th July 2025, item 5)

September 2024

Questions from members of the Public:
The following questions were asked:
1. Why is every member of the Planning committee expected to review every planning application submitted by householders? As we know, only Elmbridge has the power to refuse planning permission, either via a Planning Officer or a committee of ward councillors. Like any resident, the Parish Council can object to a planning application, but cannot refuse permission. In Cllr Collon's document produced ahead of last month's Planning Committee meeting, he wrote that:
…householder applications will only be decided by East Area Sub-Committee if referred by a ward councillor or if they are on behalf of members, the council or officers of the council; otherwise, even if there are objections from 15+ households, or from CPC, the application will still be decided by a planning officer.
One implication of the document is a belief that planning officers tend to be less susceptible than ward councillors to pressure from CPC.
Why does the Parish Council bother to review householder planning applications if its verdict is highly likely to be overridden by the assigned Planning Officer? What special knowledge or expertise does the Parish Council have, which it believes neither the Planning Officer nor affected residents possess, which justifies the duplication of effort involved in having every councillor on the Planning Committee review every planning application?
Would it not be more economical and efficient to copy what some Residents Associations in the area do—that is, to have one person review all the applications for the period and flag up to the other members of the Planning Committee only those applications which he/she deems sufficiently controversial to be worthy of their attention?
Councillor Sheppard replied to this question as follows:
1. We have a grass roots view of local sites, even though we are not planning professionals. This means we can make a contribution and potentially spot issues which might be missed by a busy officer.
2. A group view of a planning application is desirable, as some may spot issues others have missed.
3. We would like the situation where CPC objections are automatically referred to East Area Planning Sub-Committee restored and have made EBC aware of our views.
Councillor Holt also commented as follows:
4. Individuals should not be taking a view. The full council should be voting on key decisions and then a majority view should be held.
(extract from Planning Committee meeting, 12th September 2024, item 11a)

2024

COMMITTEE GOVERNANCE

In January, Councillors Janet Swift and Sue Grose resigned as Chair and Vice-Chair of the Planning Committee and were replaced by Councillors Geoff Herbert and Gil Bray respectively.

source: Claygate Courier, March 2024 issue, page 3
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