A Guide to the Planning Service

It does this by developing Planning Policy for the District and implementing it through the Development Management service which deals with the processing of planning and other similar applications.

The Council typically deals with 2,500 applications per year and the majority of these are decided by planning officers under delegated powers granted to them by the Development Management Committee. Larger or more complex applications are generally considered by the committee itself which meets approximately every 4 weeks.

To comment, object or support and existing planning applications, please see our Object, Comment or View a Planning Application or Decision page.

The Council has introduced a scheme so members of the public can now speak at Development Management committee meetings. Anyone can speak at a meeting so long as they've already written to the council about the application when it was first proposed, and they have registered to speak before the meeting. You can ask someone to speak on your behalf if you prefer.

For more information, including how to register to speak please see our Public Speaking at Development Management Meetings page.

Planning advice

You can use the Planning Portal to determine whether you need planning permission, and also for general planning advice.

For general guidance on planning matters, you can book a call back from a duty planning officer. Please note that the duty officer cannot comment on the acceptability of specific development proposals. For development proposals at the pre-application stage you should use the Pre-application Service.

If you wish to proceed straight to a planning application there are a number of Planning Forms available on the Planning Portal or to download.