Issue - meetings

(a) To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Walker

“This council will appoint suitable people to be able to enforce on the spot penalties for littering, including dog fouling. These people will be required to be trained to fulfil this role. They will be people who work in other roles in the North Devon Council or Parish and Town councils or other identified suitable organisations. This will support the incredible work currently done by our environment wardens.”

(b) To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Patrinos

“The NDC planning department has recently been the subject of unjustified criticism and unsubstantiated allegations. Council wishes to express its support for the planning department as well as all the Council’s other officers in the way they carry out their duty in trying circumstances.”

(c) To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Tucker

“I note that our M.P. and the Leader of the Council have praised in the press our housing team for doing a fantastic job under very demanding circumstances in helping local people get housed or remain in housing during the pandemic.

However, the current national planning policies are broken and the planning system is being dismantled step by step by a Government that instead relies on the economics of the market place and its distrust of public sector intervention.

This has resulted in the present inequitable and unbalanced housing market which relies on volume housebuilders' excessive and undeserved profit margins to drive housing supply which only benefit open market, second homes and airBnB and which leads to an increasingly unfair and unbalanced market. Affordable and social housing, however described, do not produce the inflated profit margins that underpin this broken system.

Furthermore, this private developers' market further benefits from the politically driven 5 Year Housing Supply contrivance that further skews the market to increase volume housebuilder assets with permission granted, more often than not on appeal, for housing on unplanned sites that are not plan-led, are unacceptable to local communities and do little to meet housing need.

This situation is causing great distress and action needs to be taken to rebalance the current state of affairs where many people are struggling to find suitable accommodation. The present situation is not because of a planning system which, contrary to the prevailing government view, works hard to allocate sufficient land for building but is due to landowners and developers' expectations of high profits whilst treating permissions as assets to be traded on the market rather than being built out and delivering housing, including affordable housing. 

Even more ridiculous, developers are rewarded for their unwillingness to implement their permissions as the Planning Inspectorate then penalise Council's (not the landowners or the developers) for not meeting their 'housing target' as the number of homes that have actually been built fall below the housing trajectory published in Councils' Local Plan. Witness the Torrington Appeal decision (Burwood Homes) which so soon after adoption of the North Devon and Torridge  ...  view the full agenda text for item 39

(a)  To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Walker

Councillor Worden advised that Councillor Walker was not present and requested that the Chief Executive provide an update on the latest position regarding Public Space Protection Orders in relation to dog control measures.

The Chief Executive advised that at a previous Council meeting, Council had discussed and approved Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) in relation to dog control measures. Included within the resolution of Council was to ensure that systems were put in place to enforce the PSPOs such as delegating enforcement powers to other groups such as Parish Councils and the National Trust to issue fixed penalty notices. Officers were currently in process of setting up training to enable such groups to start enforcing the PSPOs.

In response to a question, the Chief Executive advised that if he was unaware that 2 people had already received training but would check that they had been given the appropriate enforcement powers.

(b)  To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Patrinos

Councillor Patrinos presented his notice of motion to Council.

It was moved by Councillor Patrinos and seconded by Councillor Lofthouse that “The NDC planning department has recently been the subject of unjustified criticism and unsubstantiated allegations. Council wishes to express its support for the planning department as well as all the Council’s other officers in the way they carry out their duty in trying circumstances.”

The Chief Executive advised that it had been a particularly challenging time during the pandemic in relation to staffing. There had been media coverage recently regarding HGV vehicle driver shortages, however it was also difficult to recruit professional officers to the Council as previously the Council had relied on people relocating to the area, however as many were now working from home, this was no longer the case. Therefore, it was important that the Council as a whole continued to present the positives of the Council to make it easier to recruit staff in the future.  There was currently a shortage of professional planning officers as many were moving into a consultancy role. It was anticipated that in the future that the Council may need to consider recruiting agency staff.  During the pandemic, the planning team had dealt with a substantial increase in the number of planning applications received with less members of staff which had resulted in planning income received being over £100,000 over budget.  The planning team was still one of the best performing teams in the region.

RESOLVED that as the NDC planning department had recently been the subject of unjustified criticism and unsubstantiated allegations that Council wished to express its support for the planning department as well as all the Council’s other officers in the way they carry out their duty in trying circumstances.

(c)  To consider the following notice of motion from Councillor Tucker

In the absence of Councillor Tucker, Councillor Worden presented the notice of motion to Council.

It was moved by Councillor Worden  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39