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March 2009 Groby Parish Council faces a big bill to accommodate changes being made to planning consultation procedures by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council(HBBC). A move by the Borough to discontinue the current practice of sending the parish copies of planning applications and force the Council to view them over the internet means that new equipment will have to be bought. Some form of large screen display is needed to ensure that both councillors and residents can clearly see and appreciate the content of planning applications. Although there may be cheaper solutions the most appropriate technology to meet the needs of the Council may be a new laptop computer and 40 inch plasma screen. Councillors have been told that this could cost as much as £3000.
The Borough Council says that the change is the third phase in the overhaul of the planning service. The first two phases implemented over the last three years involved getting applicants to apply electronically, and investment in an electronic document management system in the Planning Department. This has allowed the council to share plans with the public online via the HBBC website and enabled members of the public opportunity to view plans and submit comments. This facility has been in addition to the traditional process of visiting the parish council or the main council offices in order to view plans, then writing in to make their views known.
Cost savings
Lee McMahon, Land and Property Data Manager at the Borough, says that there will a long term cost saving to authority, but given the investment in the required systems etc this will not be realised for a few years. He acknowledged that there would be a cost for the seven parishes that haven't yet made the change.
“At the end of the day Parish Councils are an important part of Local Government, and play a very large part in the Planning Process. The downside of this increasing involvement is that financial commitments placed upon Parishes are increasing,” said Lee. “We have been working with Leicestershire County Council to help with this as much as possible, both on a technical front and potentially by a joint procurement to help keep costs down. Groby Parish Council's decision to invest in what I would say is a "high end" solution is up to them, however I would suggest that an expected outlay for a reasonable laptop, data projector and some form of broadband access could be done for less than £1000. We have around 150 consultees including the Parish Councils, many of which are volunteers or amateur groups etc with less resources than Parish Councils. Outside of the Parish Councils we've only had one consultee who has not been able to make the change over straight away.”
So how will it work?
The way if will work is that rather than a letter and a copy of the plans being sent out to the clerk, an email is sent and the Parish can then log in using a secure log in and view the plans. The council will be able to make their comments online and the response will be available for the public to see.
“There is still a three week consultation window,” explained Lee, “however there is no postal cost for either party, and no postal lag involved in this consultation. The mechanics of who views the plans and how once they've been consulted is left to the Parishes themselves to decide upon, and the system is fairly flexible to be able to work around the Parish's own arrangements. As the deadline for response is clearly defined with no postal lag, the system benefits the applicant in that extra time is given between initial response and the decision deadline to enable redesign etc to meet the suggestions of consultees, thus helping all parties to meet an agreeable solution. A couple of days over the course of a planning application can sometimes make all the difference.”
The Borough uses just under 3km of A0 width paper per year operating the current system, and this will be cut by 80% when the changes have been fully implemented, with additional savings on the smaller A4 size paper.
Who gains?
The new system clearly brings some benefits and for the Borough there will be long term cost savings. But the question that Groby residents will be asking is why some of those savings can't be used to pay for the changes needed at Parish Council level.
Return to http:///www.grobyonline.co.uk/
First published in the Groby and Field Head Spotlight in March 2009