1. Following a number of Facebook posts on the Parish Council’s involvement in planning issues, the Parish Council thought it appropriate to clarify its role and responsibilities in relation to planning matters.
2. Bedford Borough Council is the planning authority for Willington; it decides whether planning permission is required or not, if to permit or refuse planning applications, and to enforce breaches of planning law. Applicants have a statutory right to appeal decisions with which they do not agree to the independent Planning Inspectorate, which is part of national rather than local government.
3. The Parish Council, therefore, does not decide whether planning permission is required, nor does it have any input to the planning application decision making process. Like residents of neighbouring planning application sites, the Parish Council is a statutory consultee – that means it has the mandatory right to be consulted by Bedford Borough Council on all planning applications within the Parish that have been made to the planning authority. Such applications may have required the applicant to liaise with the planning authority prior to submitting the application, for example to ensure all the relevant details are included, or to optimise the application’s chances of being permitted. Similarly, the Parish Council may be a consultee during an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate, as described at 2. above.
4. In pursuance of its representative powers, however, the Parish Council may act on behalf of village residents, and some other parties, who report a planning related matter to a parish councillor, or councillors, such as a possible breach of planning law. An example of this is when a resident reported to the Parish Council the unlawful mineral extraction that was being undertaken to the rear of Hudson’s Garden Centre, on which the Parish Council acted, on behalf of the resident, by reporting the issue to Bedford Borough Council. As set out in 3. above, where the Parish Council acts in such a way, its role is limited to making such a report or representation, and it plays no part in the information gathering or decision making processes undertaken by the planning authority.