Officers are being urged to get tough on breaches by the Isle of Wight Council’s planning committee.
The committee decided on Tuesday to approve the retrospective planning permission for the Atherfield Bay Holiday Camp development, but the extent of the work done without planning permission was branded a step too far by councillors.
Enforcement teams ensure planning permission is being correctly followed and investigate suspected breaches of planning control.
Councillor Vanessa Churchman said the Atherfield development was a blatant attack on democracy as the permission, which had been consulted, was now being overwritten, with the committee being asked to rubber stamp it.
Councillors then questioned how the authority could stop this from happening again.
In September last year, the council announced it would look to recruit temporary planning staff to ease the current workload, after an unusually high number of planning and enforcement applications. The council said it had seen a 37% increase in enforcement complaints during the COVID lockdown.
Despite the wish nearly 6 months ago, cabinet member for planning, Councillor Paul Fuller, said after the meeting yesterday, no officers had been recruited. Instead, he said, the authority was talking to town, parish and community councils, who were very supportive of the enforcement role and ensuring it was made better.
In Newport, the community council is looking to pay for a part-time enforcement officer who only works in the county town and Carisbrooke. If it is approved in its budget next month, the community council will be paying more than £21,500 for that role.
Cllr Fuller said the proposal at Newport was intended to be a pilot scheme but other councils including Ryde, Sandown and some rural communities were really excited about it. He said:
“With planning enforcement the way it is it was always going to be difficult to do what we wanted but we have the town and parish councils onboard, which is really good.”
Figures from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities show in the year up to September 2021, 16 enforcement actions were undertaken by the Isle of Wight Council, with only 5 enforcement notices issued.
Disgraceful. Atherfield will be the new Gurnard Pines or Thorness Bay in a few years. We all know what that means and it ain’t sand castles and ice creams.
Atherfield Holiday Park was a shameful manipulation and humiliation of some Planning Committee Councillors trying to expose the broken system. The policy to negotiate a solution over planning breaches rather than pursue enforcement is an excuse to avoid their negligence being exposed.
Now they propose to recruit local Planning Snoopers. “We have the Town and Parish Councils on board”. I bet they do! The perfect scenario to bury contentious local planning infringements!
Should make for an interesting conversation when the hapless snooper wanders into to confront a “Do you not know who I am?”, local type, doing whatever the hell he likes.
Atherfield Holiday Park was a shameful manipulation and humiliation of some Planning Committee Councillors trying to expose the broken system. The policy to negotiate a solution to planning breaches rather than pursue enforcement is an excuse to avoid having their negligence exposed.
Now they propose to recruit local ‘Planning Snoopers’. “We have the Town and Parish Councils on board”. I bet they do! The perfect scenario to bury local planning infringements!
Should make for an interesting conversation when the hapless ‘snooper’ wanders into to confront a “Do you not know who I am?”, local type, doing whatever the hell he likes
So officers are going to ‘get tough’ now after completed without permission. It only needed 1 or 2 people to attend the site from the start and take a tape measure. Its obvious even driving past Atherfield its not what it is supposed to be so alarm bells should have been ringing from the start. This has been given the green light from higher up right from the get go hence none of the departments acted on any of the many breeches on that site that have been constantly reported to the council over the last year. AONB SSSi & planning consider these unique areas as collateral damage when money is involved but general public have no chance.
£21.ooo salary not bad, let’s hope there’s no nepotism involved
Years ago I used to work for a large London Borough Council in what was called the “Audit Department”. Our job was to ensure that all departments of the council were doing their job correctly and legally this also applied to councillors. We regularly checked up on the planning department to ensure that they were carrying out their role correctly. It would appear that no such “Audit Department” exists here on the island and possibly elsewhere which is a shame.
Yep, good shout.
Tis the isle wight, you know.
Been appening for generations.
Keep it in the family.
If you took a magnifying glass to all the goings on since day dot.
Nothing but nepotism and corruption.
What “normal” person would want to be a councillor anyway.. ?
So, having established that we will only see enforcement action regarding dog fouling, if Parishes cough up an extra £600 pa (see my letter to IW County Press of 21st January), apparently, we’re now being expected to pay twice for planning enforcement. As well as this being simply wrong in principle, large parishes such as Newport and Carisbrooke may well be able to afford to pay an extra £21k pa for a part time enforcement officer, but what about the smaller parishes? In Brading, for example, we have fewer than 1000 properties subject to Council Tax. Are we really to be expected to add £21+ per household to our already burdensome Council Tax
This is the new process in government: pass the buck onto somebody else so that you can claim to have sorted the problem.
Example: The Minimum Wage: doesn’t cost HM Gov a penny, but potentially puts more people into tax – ker-ching!
Urged means nothing to the council. Just trying to make them look good but its far from working.