Kim Wright, Brent Chief Executive's, statement ahead of the constitution debate
The Extraordinary Council Meeting on Monday certainly lived up to its billing! The meeting followed the united opposition of the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Conservatives to changes in the constitution tabled at the last Full Council. The constitutional changes were necessary as a result of the Labour Government's changes to Planning Regulations that reduces the role of councillors and residents in planning decisions. The changes are part of the government's efforts to speed up the planning process in response to the housing crisis but there are misgivings among some Labour MPs.
The council is required to make the necessary changes by Halloween so an extraordinary meeting was necessary to resolve the issue.
Perhaps extraordinarily before the debate got underway Brent Council's CEO, Kim Wright, made an intervention in a statement outlining all the dire consequence for the authority if councillors failed to adopt the required changes. (See video above)
Addressing the concerns of councillors that they could no longer call-in applications she drew attention to a change in the original proposal LINK (in bold):
5.12 Under the national scheme of delegation, current practices set out in local authority constitutions, such as the power for ward councillors to require cases to be called in for committee consideration or having trigger points for referral to committee if a certain number of objections is reached, will not be possible.
Local authorities are required to amend their constitutions to align with the national scheme of delegation.
However, it is recognised that at the Full Council meeting on 14 September 2026 and the All Member Briefing on 1 October 2026 Members expressed concerns about these changes. In response, paragraph 2 of the terms of reference of the Planning Committee has, so far as possible, been reinstated but with necessary modifications (see Appendices). In outline, this will allow three or more Brent councillors (irrespective of political group membership) to request that certain applications be considered for referral to the Planning Committee
An indication that the unity at Full Council was broken was quickly evidenced when the Tories abstained on a Liberal Democrat amendment allowing Labour to have a narrow majority over the Lib Dems and Greens.
For the record this is the proposal from the Liberal Democrats that was not debated as result of this vote.
NEW PLANNING REGULATIONS
We note that the new Regulations imposed by the Labour Government undermine the role of locally elected Representatives and remove our abilityto effectively represent the interests of local people and our community.
In response to the new Regulations and the reduction of the role and powers of local Councillors we confirm the need to amend the Council constitution and resolve to include the following additions/changes:
1. To reduce the size of the Planning Committee to 5 members made up of Labour, 1 Liberal Democrat, 1 Conservative and 1 Green.
2. To resolve that the Chair of the Planning Committee will be a member of one of the opposition parties until May 2030 when the position will be reviewed.
3. To reflect the reduced role of the Planning Committee by reducing the SRA for the Chair of the Planning Committee to £7,500.
Specifically in relation of regulation 5(3) of the 2026 Regulations we resolve:
1. To set up an Advisory Board made up of 3 members of the Planning Committee or their alternates who will advise/inform the Nominated Member and Nominated Officer on whether a ‘qualifying’ application should be referred to the Planning Committee.
2. To ensure that when information/publicity about a planning application is issued by the Council it states
a. That the specific application will be determined by Planning Officers under delegated powers or
b. That the application falls within the defined areas of Regulation 5(3) and where a decision to refer it to the Planning Committee is possible
a clear explanation is provided on how and who makes the decision to refer the application to Committee – and if so referred explain the process the Planning Committee has to follow.
c. In all cases publish the Planning Officer Report relating to each Planning Application and the decision made and any conditions imposed.
The debate on whether to accept the changes to the constitution contained many defences of local democracy and allegations that central government was undermining the role of local councillors in representing the views of residents through planning committees. The Tories strongly condemned the Labour Government with stirring speeches that can be heard in the video below - but as you will see in the final minutes said, with something of a whimper, that they had no option but to comply and abstained - again giving Labour a majority over Liberal Democrats and Greens:
Cllr Mary Mitchell, Green Group Leader, said that the changes were borne out of the reality of the housing crisis, a crisis Greens recognised and believe requires radical solution, but the changes would further erode public trust in the planning system and strengthen the perception that the planning system is rigged in favour of those who have power and know best how to play the system. She advocated the plans of Green-led Lewisham Council to bring planning closer to local communities while also meeting housing need.
Cllr Muhammed Butt emphasised that this was not something of the council's doing: ''If there was any other way, we would have found the way.' He remained open to further discussion.
The constitutional changes were adopted by a small Labour majority over the Greens and Liberal Democrats when the Tories abstained.
Cllr Anton Georgiou, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said he could see that some Labour councillors were uncomfortable and warned them that they would have to defend themselves when residents came to complain that they had no say in planning applications.
The planning system will now hand over most decision-making to council officers as illustrated in the Brent Council document below:
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