Stratford-on-Avon District Council's Planning targets smashed

Stratford-on-Avon District Council's Planning service has delivered its best ever performance results over the last ten years - exceeding all four national performance targets.

Determining Planning Applications within a reasonable timescale is recognised by Central Government as vital in supporting appropriate development and helping to deliver economic recovery. Because of this, national performance targets are set for all Planning Authorities to achieve.

In 2012 the Government introduced a new penalty for those planning authorities that were not determining applications quickly and the threshold for this penalty has increased over the years. Where performance is slow planning authorities lose their power to determine applications locally and instead this work and fee income would transfer to the Planning Inspectorate.

Cllr Sarah Whalley-Hoggins, Community Portfolio says: "These are tremendous performance results for the District Council. It must be remembered that the Core Strategy was adopted in 2016 and up until that time the service was receiving a very high number of applications and became the second busiest planning authority in the country and the busiest in the country for Major applications. To continue to improve results throughout that time is a real credit to the District Council's Planning team."