MID Devon District Council has made gains on tackling a planning enforcement backlog and has implemented a new policy it believes will be more robust.

Criticism had been levelled at the council for its lacklustre approach to planning enforcement, caused largely, it claims, by persistent vacancies in the team responsible.

The issue was regularly cited by Rachel Gilmour, who previously chaired the scrutiny committee and is now Liberal Democrat MP for Tiverton and Minehead.

While the authority continues to have a sizeable caseload, the scrutiny committee heard that all but one of its historic cases had now been dealt with.

It also agreed a new planning enforcement policy following regulatory and legislative changes.

The policy echoes those of other authorities, notably East Devon, and aims to be more accessible in terms of its language and structure.

Heather Nesbitt, a senior enforcement officer who joined the authority at the start of the year, said she had implemented a triage process to ensure the most urgent cases are dealt with faster.

“When we started assessing the cases and categorising them, we were looking at some that originated in 2016 and 2017,” she said.

“Besides one case form 2019, that is related to an ongoing prosecution matter, we are now only looking at cases from this year and last.

“When cases come in, we are triaging them and not letting them come in and fester.”

According to data requested by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mid Devon has 331 open cases, including ones where formal action has been taken and cases awaiting planning decisions.

That number is up from the 309 at the start of the year. However, between January 17 and November 26, the council’s planning enforcement team closed 201 cases.

It closed just 30 in the last three months of 2023, suggesting the performance this year has been better.

Ms Nesbitt added that an assistant planning enforcement officer had joined in June, and that this was improving how the council deals with complaints.

She added: “When we go out and look to investigate the priority of a case, it might have been marked as low by the team that records the complaint, but we might move it up if required, and vice versa,” she added.

Richard Marsh, director of place and economy, said it is important to remember that the planning enforcement caseload always churns.

“When we talk about planning enforcement, there is a misconception that the 300-or-so figure is static, but some members will be aware that the caseload is very active,” he said.

“We hover around the 300 figure, but there is churn in that number and we have had months where we close 86 cases and get 83 in, so it seems consistent.”

A council spokesperson said because work is ongoing to categorise the cases into high, medium, or low, it could not provide figures for how many cases are in each level.

Bradley Gerrard

LDRS

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