Questions asked after councillor granted planning permission in error

Arun District Council’s deputy leader Jacky Pendleton (Con, Middleton-On-Sea) and her husband applied to make changes to their home in November 2021.

They were granted planning permission in January but it has since transpired that this broke council rules.

This is because planning applications made by councillors should always go before the planning committee but, in this case, permission was granted by an officer – something that is routine for smaller, less controversial applications.

Planning permission was subsequently voided and then ‘re-granted’ by the planning committee in line with correct procedures on Wednesday (28 September).

Mrs Pendleton has since taken responsibility for the error.

She explained that the couple’s architect did not tick the box on the application form declaring that she is a councillor.

“As soon as I realised that this procedure was incorrect, I alerted the officers who took immediate remedial action,” Mrs Pendleton said earlier this week.

“It is unrealistic for planners, particularly if they are new to the organisation, to automatically recognise the name of every councillor.

“This was the fault of me and my husband not being alert to the inaccuracy.”

During Wednesday’s planning meeting, concerns were raised about the error.

Shirley Haywood (Ind, Middleton-on-Sea) wanted to know which checks and balances are in place to prevent similar incidents.

“We should be looking at the screening process to ensure that there are no grounds for fear or favour and, to quote the constitution, no grounds for accusations of favouritism,” she said.

“If the application has been completed incorrectly, shouldn’t we be looking at a corrected application or a new application?”

Legal services manager Solomon Agutu said it would be ‘difficult’ to pick up if a person making a planning application was a councillor if the documents were submitted by somebody else.

“Since the application was valid in itself when it was made, there is no reason for requiring it to be resubmitted,” he said.

Group head of planning Neil Crowther explained that his department receives more than 2,000 applications a year.

“We do not have the resources and all the knowledge frankly, to go through every single planning application form and check that the agent and applicants have filled it in precisely, 100 per cent correctly,” he said.

“This is one of those instances where the applicant didn’t fill it in correctly and we are now having to deal with the consequences, unfortunately.”

Ricky Bower (Con, East Preston) said he believed checks and balances are in place but added that staff pressures and the quantity of applications made finding such errors ‘like looking for a needle in a haystack’.

Committee chair Terence Chapman (Con, East Preston) said that both planning agents – who make applications on somebody’s behalf – and the property owner have a ‘reciprocal duty of care’ to ensure correct information is given.

More details about the application, which has now been approved, can be found at the council’s planning portal using the reference: M/145/21/HH.