Agenda item

Question Time

The following questions have been received and will either be responded to during the meeting or a written response will be included in the minutes:

Cllr Robin Stuchbury

I’m seeking reassurance from the Cabinet member in regards to processing planning applications particularly within the Buckingham/rural area. A few of the North Bucks area planning committee meetings have been cancelled with the suggestion that there is no business which needs processing. However, there are a number of applications, some dating back to 2018, and many of them are for major developments within a community with an agreed neighbourhood development plan which was agreed by the latter-day planning authority through public referendum within Buckingham. I, therefore, seek a better understanding of why the committee has only met once this year. Is there some issue which we are not privy to regarding staffing or the ability to process applications or is there a procedural operational change in determining applications which could explain why there are not sufficient planning applications to be determined? I’ve been thinking of asking the question for some time, but the latest cancellation of the meeting of 30th September this was the catalyst necessitating presenting this question to seek clarity of the above concern.

Cllr Robin Stuchbury

In light of the written response and verbal response at the Cabinet meeting on 8 September 2020, has the Cabinet now come to the conclusion of their view on the proposals in the Planning White Paper and the environmental and economic impact this could have for Buckinghamshire, as well as the implications for local democratic accountability in the planning process?

Cllr Alan Bacon

The Long Shadow of Deprivation is a very recent report from a government agency, the Social Mobility Commission. This report identifies social mobility in Chiltern as amongst the very worst in the country. Will the portfolio holder please report on how the council will seek to address this situation?

Minutes:

Cllr Stuchbury’s question

Response provided by Warren Whyte, Cabinet Member for Planning and Enforcement.

It was recognised that there are a number of legacy issues within the former Development Management teams, which were now with the new council to resolve. As such, the Planning and Environment Service was one of the first areas of the Council to be reviewed as part of Buckinghamshire Council’s Review and Revive Programme. In addition the Council had started implementing immediate actions in Development Management, with a view to bringing about improvements to expedite the determination of applications ahead of the wider service programme.

In total since April 2020 the Council had received 951 applications within the North area, of those 425 fell within the categories defined in the council’s constitution that could be called into committee (full, outline or reserved matters). The North Area Committee had only been held once, with 4 committee dates being cancelled. This was because the majority of applications were being determined using delegated powers. The council had determined 964 applications in the North area under delegated powers since April 2020 and 1 application had been determined by the North Area Planning committee. It should be noted that in accordance with national best practice over 96% of applications were usually determined by councils under delegated authority.

He had asked Officers to review the sites listed by Councillor Stuchbury. Out of the 42 listed, 10 of the applications did not fall within the category that could be called into committee. Of those pending the majority were being actively worked on and awaiting further information or subject to negotiation. Very few were subject to call in request by a Member, albeit comments had been made. The Council were actively programming applications to forthcoming committees but this would be dependent on the stage that was reached on negotiations on the application at the time of the closing of agendas.

The service would also carry out an investigation as to the consistency of the number and type of applications reaching each of the five area committees and feed this into an overall view of how the constitution was operating in this area.

Cllr Robin Stuchbury (written response)

Response to be provided by Warren Whyte, Cabinet Member for Planning and Enforcement.

The Council’s draft response to the Planning White Paper has been published and was on the agenda for this Cabinet meeting. He will see from the draft response that whilst there were some interesting ideas in the White Paper, he also had a number of concerns and intended to make a full submission to Government before the close of the consultation period.

Cllr Alan Bacon

Response provided by Gareth Williams, Cabinet Member for Communities and Public Health.

Whilst the Council welcome the intentions of the report to highlight partnership work needed to reduce inequalities, unfortunately the way the data had been used had led to some misleading conclusions and was contradicted by other, more comprehensive reports issued by the same Commission.

There were four areas in Buckinghamshire. These were Aylesbury Vale with a median ‘deprived’ wage in 2014-2016 of £15,200, South Bucks at £17,100, Wycombe at £15,500 and, somewhat bizarrely, Chiltern at just £6,900. In the case of Chiltern, with just 52 out of 1440 in the school year chosen (just 3.6%) in the ‘most deprived’ category it was easy to see how a median could be affected when the entire authority was judged by its 26th most deprived earned income. By comparison, the total ‘deprived’ number in most areas was 13-14% of the population.

One of the report’s main conclusions was that areas with lower pay for disadvantaged sons and less equality of opportunity were typically more deprived areas, have lower house prices, fewer market opportunities in professional occupations, fewer educational opportunities in ‘outstanding’ schools and were more densely populated. The fact that none of those variables apply to Chiltern area further serves to illustrate this appears to be an anomaly. In actual fact, the unemployment level in Chiltern was just 4.2%, well below the national average. With regard to schools in the Chiltern area, 49/51 (96%) were good or outstanding (33% were outstanding).

The Social Mobility Commission’s latest, more comprehensive, ‘State of the National report, using a variety of 14 different data sources a year after the above mentioned report, showed Chiltern as a social mobility hotspot, 56th out of 324 authorities.

That said the Council were not being complacent and wanted to see Social Mobility as a hallmark of the place in which residents lived. The Council needed to keep supporting schools to retain their well above average Ofsted ratings, results and pupil progress as well as creating the right conditions for good jobs in the local economy. Furthermore, the Council continued to work with the Buckinghamshire Skills Hub to ensure that all secondary school pupils have access to good careers advice and opportunities. The Under 19’s careers education program had been rated the most successful careers and enterprise program for the 2nd year by the Careers and Enterprise Company. The annual Skills Show provided a showcase to careers for young people. This year due to restrictions it would be a series of online events aimed at bringing lessons to life by showing how curriculum subjects could be applied in the workplace and supporting young people through their next choices during these challenging time.

The Council would be working through their Community Boards to make sure they were aware of their local inequalities and could direct funding locally towards projects which best address local needs. The Council were also speaking to the Commission to explore best practice projects and to see if there was more to learn from the small dataset they used.

Cllr Lesley Clarke

Why has the Cabinet Member not incorporated any of the suggestions from local Members, the Chairman and Members of High Wycombe Town Committee and the Chairman of the High Wycombe Community Board Infrastructure Sub Group in putting together the recommendations as those submitted to Cabinet on Handy Cross Park and Ride Car Park?

Response provided by David Martin, Cabinet Member for Logistics.

He, along with officers advising him had taken fully into account all suggestions from local members and stakeholders regarding the Handy Cross Car park. Prior to the public consultation he had a number of telephone conversations with Cllr Clarke and other local members; he also received and replied to various emails from Cllr Clarke and other local members. Thereafter, accompanied by the Service Director, he attended a meeting of the High Wycombe Town Committee, at which Cllr Clarke, with other members, asked numerous questions and made a wide range of representations, all of which were noted and taken into account when preparing his report to Cabinet.

The public consultation on the proposals for Handy Cross park and ride car park commenced on 28/8/20 and ran until 20/9/20. During this time, the Council received a total of 61 responses. Of those, four identified themselves as Councillors, two informing they were members of the High Wycombe Town Committee, and one informing they were a member of the High Wycombe Community Board Infrastructure Group. No formal response to the consultation was received from Cllr Clarke.

He was satisfied that all comments received pre-consultation, and from the consultation itself, had been fully considered; were summarised in Appendix B to his report; and were taken into account in the preparation of his report.