1. The Council's approach to Planning Enforcement

1.1  This council puts great value on the quality of life and local environment that local people enjoy whether in the borough's countryside or in its towns and villages. In all of its work on planning and development the council strives to drive a 'quality agenda', recognising the importance of new development in creating economic growth and helping meet the community's changing needs, but also recognising the importance of tackling inappropriate and unauthorised development.

1.2    When development takes place without council permission and causes significant harmful impacts on people's lives, residents understandably expect that action should be taken.

1.3    This Local Enforcement Plan sets out how the council can and will respond. We follow government advice which encourages councils to try to resolve issues locally by negotiation as this is very often the quickest and most effective way to resolve planning problems. It is also the best way for the council to use its resources - taking formal enforcement action, assuming such action succeeds if it is subject of a planning appeal, can be a much longer and more involved process than people imagine and consumes considerable officer time.

1.4    However, where the negotiated solution approach fails, or individuals deliberately or persistently ignore planning rules and carry out development that seriously impacts on the wider community, then there should be no doubt that the council will take formal enforcement action whenever possible.

1.5    In a typical year around of planning control are reported to the council to investigate. A large proportion of these (around 40%) turn out to be development that is ‘permitted development’ as a result of supplementary planning legislation and so is outside of council planning controls and therefore no action can be taken.

1.6    The size of the borough and the varied mix of urban, sub-urban and rural environments that it contains means that the council strongly relies on alerts from members of the public as to potential breaches of planning control.