Bid to speed up planning system in Portsmouth to be discussed again - but it's been slated as a 'power grab'

Last month the council's scrutiny management panel voted to refer the decision of cabinet member Lee Hunt - which was made in a bid to reduce the council department’s backlog - back to him, describing it as an ‘unintentional constitutional power grab’.

The call-in of the July decision to increase the number of objections at which a planning application is considered by the committee, was based on concerns he had not followed precedent in referring it to the council's governance committee first.

‘It’s worrying that he feels entitled to make the decision he did,’ councillor Ryan Brent, who requested it be looked at, said. ‘Our constitution says that if anything impacts more [councillors] than just the one making the decision then there’s a process to follow – it’s not adding extra red tape.’

The decision will be reconsidered by Cllr Hunt at an extra meeting called on Friday (October 14) with no recommendations having been made to him.

'In reconsidering the matter, the cabinet member should take into account any observations made by the scrutiny management panel,' a report published ahead of the meeting says.

'The options available to the cabinet member are to either amend or reconfirm the decisions made on July 26 or refer the matter on to the [governance committee] for comment prior to either amending or reconfirming the decision.'

However, Cllr Hunt previously suggested he would re-approve the decision, describing the original decision as fully lawful and adding that his only aim was to reduce the planning backlog.

‘I’m interested in doing the right thing for people who have been waiting for their planning applications to be heard,’ he said. ‘I had all the information – the officers submitted a good report – to make the decision.'

He said the referral had only exacerbated the problem of the year-long wait for proposals to reach a decision.

In April the city council held a two-week shutdown in order to try to clear its planning application backlog. It previously drafted in a private firm to catch up with the number of applications, but this had little impact.