Agenda item - Chair's Communications

43.1    The Chair: When the last meeting of this Committee had to be abandoned, I hadn’t quite got as far as my Chair’s Comms. So, this time I’m going to have to cover a lot of ground.

Firstly, I’m happy to report that the Planning Department has a newly appointed officer who is tasked with discovering why certain development sites in the city seem to be blocked and work out ways of unblocking them. The work appears to be going very well and I hope that applications for some of these sites will be coming our way in the not-too-distant future.

We also received the Quarter 1 planning performance update. Among the most significant headlines are the fact that the average time taken to determine applications is continuing to reduce as are the number of appeals against decisions and the percentage of those appeals which are granted. Many thanks to all the planning officers whose hard work has helped lead to these significant service improvements.

Perhaps most significantly, we are getting close to the final signoff of City Plan Part II. I was at TECC Committee on 15^th September where we passed the recommendation to Full Council by eight votes for to a single abstention. CPP2 is not perfect. However, it will give those of us on this Committee and the Panning Department in general, a great deal more ability to control what development does and does not occur in our city. It will allow us to give full weight to our local policies, allowing greater protection for our local shopping areas, and our heritage assets, and ensure that developments help us counter the existential threats represented by the ongoing climate and biodiversity crises. In exchange for this increase in our local powers, we have had to provide the Government appointed inspectors with plans for 7% of our urban fringe sites for development. This is far from ideal, but what it means in effect is that 93% of our urban fringe is protected in the long term, whereas if we did not adopt the plan, there would be no protection for 100% of our urban fringe. I am very much looking forward to Full Council on the 20^th of this month, where we will, I hope, finally back this massive step in the direction of successful sustainable planning for our city.