Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

ENVIRONMENT POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE

MANAGEMENT REVIEW OF THE HIGHWAY

DEVELOPMENT CONTROL SERVICE

MINUTES OF MEETING OF SUB GROUP

HELD ON 26 JUNE 2003

Present

Councillor C R H Davidovitz (Chairman)

Councillor M Geddes

Councillor R J Kimber

Councillor R H Price

Councillor J K West

A G Trott Development Control Coordinator

M L Housby Assistant Engineer (Development Control)

A Burns Independent Facilitator

T Gilmour Chairman, Hampshire District Chief Engineers' Group

H Bone Solicitor, Winchester City Council

1. APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from:

Councillor J E Coles

Councillor P Luffman

2. MINUTES OF LAST MEETING

The Minutes were agreed with the following amendments:

(i) page 2, second (ii) - 2002, not 2003;

(ii) page 3, paragraph (vii) - 100 dwellings, not car parking spaces;

(iii) page 3, paragraph (viii) - for clarification, Section 106 legal agreements would be prepared for transport infrastructure;

(iv) page 4, Land Charge Searches:

(a) second sentence should read "At present, still operating under the old Agency Agreement, the County Council undertook the service for all non-agency areas, parts of island agencies and not at all for the full agencies";

(b) higher price, not lower;

(d) for clarification, "there was an agreement with the Law society that directed searches to district councils";

(v) page 4, Way Forward - (i) stakeholders, not district councils.

3. MATTERS ARISING

No matters were raised.

4. HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT CONTROL

Development Control

The Chairman commented that the Sub Group had been tasked to consider the comments received as a consequence of the County Council's proposals to change the way it undertook development control procedures. The effect would be that the County would withdraw some of the work previously undertaken by district councils. As a result of consultation there was concern by some district councils at the way they would carry out and fund the development control function as well as the land charge search procedures. The Sub Group needed to ensure that any change would be for the benefit of stakeholders.

The proposal would be that district councils would continue to deal with minor applications in terms of the highway input but the definition of minor would be amended to reflect the proposed higher threshold level and the consequential increased level of work. The issue of funding needed to be resolved.

Terry Gilmour (Chairman of the Hampshire District Chief Engineers' Group) commented that his own authority (Test Valley) operated a `one stop' shop arrangement for planning applications. There were now more highway consultations being carried out than in the past (including pre applications and after submission), therefore it was important that this service which was provided to the public and all members of the Borough Council was adequately funded and resourced. There was also an expectation that officer representation would be available at all planning committee meetings to give advice. For Test Valley the County Council allocated £55,000 a year to fund 1.4 FTEs.

It was clarified that once the threshold level had increased to 100 dwellings the County Council would be prepared to enhance funding, but as yet a protocol had not been agreed on workload and level of resources.

At present the County Council was funding a district council annual resource of between 1 FTE to 3.3 FTEs irrespective of the number of planning applications. Under the new proposal this arrangement would not change. District funding was obtained by the County Council allocation and also by the planning application fee.

Section 38/Design Checks

It was explained that once a planning application had been granted approval by the local planning authority (ie a district council), a developer was required to enter into a Section 38 Agreement so that roads could be adopted. Such planning applications included detailed drawings of the drainage system, road layout, etc. Once under construction it was presently supervised at district level, the proposal being that in future this would be undertaken by engineers at the four County Highways Units. Unless construction was in accordance with specification then a road could not be adopted. Design/inspection was covered by fees paid by the developer as part of the Agreement, which ultimately would be passed to the householder.

At Test Valley officers presently carried out a mix of Section 38 and development control work. The proposal would affect the staffing critical mass and would question the need to retain development control/traffic management resources. On Section 38 work this did not represent more than half their time and therefore under the TUPE arrangements may not be eligible for transfer.

Alun Trott commented that in practice the road adoption process was broken down into numerous elements which involved different officers, the proposed change would create a more efficient and effective system, achieve economies of scale and provide a training regime which fitted in with the Environment Department's IiP criteria. It was envisaged that the team would comprise four graded engineers. This would also meet the Government's expectation that planning authorities should deliver quicker and be more innovative in design. A paper was tabled which detailed income received from Section 38 Agreement for the last three years.

Although a separate issue and managed by different staff at the County, traffic management was raised. A new arrangement was being proposed for this service but not all districts had yet accepted it. Test Valley, for example, had not; if Section 38 staff were affected then there could be a need to find alternative work, ie traffic management.

Discussion Issues

By Members

Development Control

· there should be an agreed figure at the beginning of the year which could be adjusted at the end to equate to the work actually undertaken; this could result in districts having to pay money back to the County or vice versa;

· districts would be asked to undertake the function of behalf of the County Council, how districts handled that in terms of staff arrangement would be left to each district council.

Section 38/Design Checks

· improved coordination so that better use is made of the available expertise in both district councils and the County;

· should a mix of work not be available then this may affect career prospects and morale;

· it was accepted that some districts could feel aggrieved should this income be lost.

By officers

Development Control

· the increased level of activity to be undertaken by each district council needed to be assessed and funds allocated; once this had been done then it was for each district council to determine how to carry out that work;

· any changes would be reflected by the amount funded by the County Council;

· it was proposed to create a website entry under Hampshire County Council where this information would be available to the public; advisory leaflets would also be prepared.

Section 38/Design Checks

· there would be no conflict of specification as all officers would be working within the County's design guide `Movement Access Streets and Spaces' which removed dimensions/standards to that local planning authorities could be as innovative as possible. To enforce this procedure a safety audit could be requested as part of the Agreement;

· there would be implications on the critical mass element with this proposed change.

5. LAND CHARGE SEARCHES

The present arrangement was that for all non-agency areas and the directly controlled parts of island agency areas the County Council undertook land charge searches on highway matters. It was being proposed that the island agencies were no longer split and the County Council undertook searches for entire districts, as it already does for the non-agencies. It was further proposed that full Agency areas would retain that function until 2005 when e-government would be introduced.

Howard Bone (solicitor at Winchester City) explained the situation at his authority. Winchester, as an island agency, had undertaken searches for the city, whereas the County Council had been responsible for the remainder of the district. However, in May 2002 Winchester had handed back the `island' searches.

As the County Council recharged the districts £10 for each search, there was a concern about the diversion of part of the search fee to the County Council, however in practice the district could pass on the County Council recharge to the applicant. It was suggested that the information required to answer searches could be made available electronically to the districts to enable them to continue. However, much of the information was GIS based (such as the `list of highways maintainable at public expense' and rights of way) and it was not practical to run this system from remote locations.

The proposal is:

(i) full agencies - some justifiable issues;

(ii) island agencies:

(a) Basingstoke and Deane - to be returned to the County on 1 August 2003

(b) New Forest and Test Valley - concern over fee income, needs to be resolved for effective date of 1 April 2004;

In order to address the problem of apportionment of fees the County had agreed with the districts to again freeze the figure of £10.00; this figure had now remained for three years, fitted in with Best Value principles and reflected the present housing market. A paper was tabled which detailed annual numbers of searches and fees charged/received.

Discussion Issue

By Members - to share a fee with the County could result in a reduced income for districts when compared to districts charging their own fees.

6. REPORT OF SUB GROUP TO ENVIRONMENT POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE

On considering the recommendations in the Environment PRC report of 7 May 2003 it was determined:

(i) Strategic Planning Applications - agreed,

(ii) Minor Planning Applications - agreed;

(iii) Section 106/278 Agreements - agreed, with district council funding being inflation proof each year;

(iv) Section 38 Agreements and Advance Payments Code:

Councillors Davidovitz, Kimber and West agreed.

Councillor Price dissented; he sought more dialogue between the districts and the County; although he accepted that the County has to be responsible for the quality of work undertaken he was not convinced that the districts could not carry out the pre work. Councillor Price requested that the two sets of statistics tabled should be made available to the PRC on 21 July.

Councillor Geddes requested additional information be made to the PRC to indicate staff deployment costs; each authority to respond to the Sub Group's outcomes. Terry Gilmour would ask district engineers to send the appropriate information to Alun Trott.

(v) Design Checks - agreed;

(vi) Land Charge Searches - agreed.

In preparation for PRC on 21 July:

(i) Members would receive copies of district letters received; and

(ii) a copy of the Minutes of this meeting would be circulated to districts to show that there had been general consensus on the various issues, apart from Section 38 Agreements.

C81377/WA

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