Developments in Portsmouth are policed by national planning regulations and local laws and guidelines, managed by the planning department at the council and overseen by a group of elected councillors known as the Planning Committee. That all sounds logical, organised and sensible doesn't it…
So why does the Planning Committee keep making decisions which are contrary to their own rules and as a result, then have those decisions overturned by the Planning Inspectorate? We reported this issue back in 2017 (more here) yet they have continued blindly trying to misapply their own rules. If the rules (Supplementary Planning Documents) are to stand up to appeals then decisions need to be evidence based, not based on the prejudices of residents and/or Councillors desire to be re-elected.
Last month, the Planning Committee were told of 5 more cases that had been appealed and in which their decisions had been overturned – they themselves complain about the cost of this to the taxpayer, we would argue their behaviour in trying to misuse the process in this way costs the taxpayer and the applicants in each case far more than they estimate when you take in the time spent by officers preparing for the original review, the appeal, etc.
The bad news is that the Planning Committee is now asking PRED (a different councillor group focussed on Regeneration and Economic Development) to rewrite some of the rules so they can force through some of the restrictions that they have consistently failed to be able to do over the past 5 years.
Worse than that though, is that all of these actions are increasing homelessness in the city. Read on for our explanation of why this is true which we sent to every member of the Planning Committee