Brent Council defends decision to go ahead with virtual Planning Committee despite residents' objections

Brent Council has put on record its reasons for rejecting deferral of the Sudbury Town Station planning application on lack of democracy grounds which presumably will also apply to other applications. LINK

The Meeting begins at 6pm tonight and the Livestream can be viewed HERE

…objections are raised concerning the 'virtual' nature of the committee meeting, and a perceived lack of transparency and public participation as a result of this. The Sudbury Town Residents Association have commented that certain statutory requirements have not been met and have asked that this item is deferred. However, they do not advise which statutory requirements they consider to not have been met. Officers consider that all statutory requirements have been met. The Government has legislated to enable Council meetings to take place virtually and has made it clear it wants Councils to continue to hold public meetings and make decisions to enable it to continue to carry out its functions. The Planning Committee will operate in the usual way but via Zoom rather than in the Civic Centre. People will continue to be able to register a request to address the Planning Committee and may speak on-line, using the Zoom app or using a telephone. The Committee will be live streamed as usual so anyone who might have come to the Civic Centre to watch, but not participate in the meeting, will still be able to observe proceedings. The planning committee meeting will continue to be transparent and public participation has not been reduced. The Council also has not extended “delegated powers” (i.e. the range of decisions determined by officers rather than committee) during the lock-down as some Councils have done. 

The absence of a Planning Committee site visit or a site meeting with residents has also been raised by objectors. The objectors have raised concern that the planning committee may not be able to fully understand a number of matters, such as the availability of disabled parking, levels of on-street parking, the relationship with adjoining sites (and associated impacts) and the relationship with the depot. Planning Committee site meetings are not held for committee items, either with residents or the applicant / agent. 

A planning application will have been already evaluated and the site inspected by planning staff and it is not necessary for a formal Planning Committee site visit to be made. There is no legal requirement for this to happen. Site visits may be held for a limited number of committee items when it is considered helpful to visit the site to understand the proposal and the site context. Committee members may visit a site in their own time should they consider it necessary to understand the site and its context. It is considered that members can evaluate the proposal using the application submission documents, site photos, committee report and other resources that area available (such as Google Earth and Google Streetview). The objectors state that such visits (or meetings) are important to enable the public to put their point of view forward. However Committee site visits are for observations only and not for conversations with members of the public or applicants – the place for this is at committee. There is a reasonable expectation the Planning Committee members are able to make a well informed decision from the information available to them.