A set of changes, agreed at a meeting of Full Council in October, have now been made due to the implementation of the national scheme of delegation of planning decisions.
The new delegation arrangements took effect from 31 October 2026, to comply with the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026.
These Regulations place major restrictions on the types of planning application that English councils can refer to any committee for determination, and instead require them to make arrangements for many applications to be decided by officers. The requirements of the regulations are referred to by the government as a ‘national scheme of delegation’.
Please refer to the following which can be found in the Constitution.
Article 9 – Regulatory – Planning Committee;
Article 9A. Appendix 1 – Scheme of Delegations, in the specific delegations to the Head of Planning Services under Part C of Section H;
Appendix 18 – Code of Good Planning Practice.