FEARS have been expressed that towns and villages will lose their voice after the borough council gave in to "bully boy" pressure from the government over its dealings with planning applications. A huge shake-up of Waverley Borough Council's decision making process has been approved by a narrow margin after councillors heard that the planning department was "at breaking point". The recent full council meeting heard that big changes were necessary to speed up the planning system. Council leader Gillian Ferguson warned that if the council did not speed up it was at risk of having the government coming in and taking over the planning department to put it in order. Among the plans which were approved was a huge change to the council's committee structure, which makes the decisions on controversial applications and large-scale development. The present area-based system is to be replaced with two new, borough-wide committees to create a cycle which will see development management meetings taking place every three weeks. Applications of borough-wide significance, such as the proposed regeneration of East Street in Farnham, will be dealt with at a joint meeting of the two committees. More emphasis is to be placed on pre-application discussions with the developer, local councillor and parish-level council to iron out details and concerns before it comes to committee for decision. Smaller and less controversial applications such as those for conservatories are also to be "outsourced" to an outside agency, which will make decisions based on the council's planning policies. Another measure to be examined is the possibility of extending permitted development rights so that planning permission for things such as extensions are not required as long as they fall within strict criteria. The result of both of these measures will be a reduced number of cases for the planning officers to deal with. At an earlier executive meeting, chief executive Christine Pointer said that the planning staff were "at breaking point" and a different way of working must be found. "I have a mailbag daily that is full of complaints about the way we are not dealing with our planning system," she said. "Only 56 per cent of our population are satisfied. "I deal with the complaints and by the time they get to me, most members of the public are incandescent. "And it's not just isolated incidents - they are coming in thick and fast." Although councillors were supportive of the behind-the-scenes changes, many expressed grave concerns that the decisions for controversial applications would be made by the borough-wide committees and not more local committees. Carole Cockburn said that the council was giving in to the government's "target dominant" and "tick box" policies. "We are giving in to the school bully without a fight," she said. James Mackie said that result would be a loss of local representation. "This proposal is centralisation at the expense of democracy," he said. Pam Hibbert also hit back at the government's criticism that "parochial" views dominate in area committee when in fact the council should be looking at the larger picture. "Local knowledge is not parochial," she said. "I am not prepared to be bullied like this." John Sandy proposed that that plans to change the committee system should be temporarily shelved so that more time can be taken to find a better alternative. However, his proposal was lost by two votes and the Liberal Democrat-led council agreed to go ahead with the changes in principle. The executive member for planning and major projects, Patrick Haveron,, defended the council's proposals and again emphasised that the current planning system was "at breaking point". "This way we can get more applications to committee," he said. Fellow executive member Victor Scrivens also said that change was necessary because "the whole concept of planning is changing". "At the end of the day, we have to meet targets," he said. Gillian Ferguson also defended the plans and said that the committees, which will be made up of between 15 and 20 councillors, would each have councillors with local knowledge from across the entire borough. However, while agreeing the plans, the council decided to look into the details of how the new planning system would work. This includes extending public speaking and ensuring that councillors can bring applications to committee for decision. After the meeting, Mr Haveron said: "I believe that these significant improvements to the decision- making process demonstrate the council's commitment to achieving its aim of developing a shaping and influencing planning service on behalf of our residents." Council officers are now working on finalising details about how the new development management committee system would be organised. Councillors are due to discuss the detail at the full council meeting in October.
