Planning concerns raised by MS

Concern over the lack of site visits being conducted by members of Powys County Council’s Planning committee ahead of deciding applications has been flagged up with the Auditor General for Wales.

Montgomeryshire’s Conservative MS Russell George met with the Auditor General for Wales, Adrian Crompton and a team from Audit Wales last Friday to work through a list of concerns about the council’s planning service.

In April, Mr Russell wrote to Mr Crompton raising continued and serious concerns regarding the performance of the planning service.

This follows the publication of two reports by Audit Wales on the council’s planning service in the last two years.

Following today’s meeting, Mr George MS said: “The auditor general took on board my concerns and examples provided and will use what I outlined as part of a wider piece of work Audit Wales is undertaking around the governance and leadership of the council.”

Mr Russell explained that they worked through a number of points that formed the basis of the meeting agenda and gave examples of planning issues that he has come across.

Mr Russell said: “We did spend some time on examples around missing and inaccurate information in reports going to committee.”

“I also made the point on the lack of site visits by committee.”

Interest in Mr George’s concerns around planning in Powys was shown by members of the council’s Governance and Audit committee last month.

The committee chairwoman and lay-member Lynne Hamilton said that she will  be expecting an update on the issue in “due course,” following the meeting.

In May 2023 Audit Wales published a damning report into the state of Powys council’s planning service and issued a number of recommendations for the council to address.

In response, the council set up an internal board to help steer improvements in the service.

Last November, Audit Wales issued a follow up report which said that “overall” they had found that Powys planners had “responded quickly” to improve its arrangements.

Audit Wales said that the planning service has: “implemented the 2023 recommendations in full.”

Mr George believes that the follow-up review did not provide a “comprehensive examination” of planning.

In particular, Mr Russell said the report did not evaluate the overall performance of the department, nor did it assess the merits or handling of individual planning applications.

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporting Service