466!

October

27

5 comments

Chris Black asked at Full Council last night how many planning enforcement cases were ongoing in Rochford District. The answer is 466 – a shockingly high figure.

The council has 2 full-time officers dealing with this, plus some other officers helping sometimes. To put it mildly, this seems inadequate. The council needs to arrange things better. The current situation is unfair on officers and unfair on residents.

About the author, admin

  • This is a shockingly high figure.The enforcement process is so cumbersome that it takes ages for any action to be effective. Anyone who wants to ignore planning law stands a good chance of getting away with it e.g the “lorry advert” at the fairglen interchange.Frankly enforcement is a joke

  • Brian, I’m not an expert on the field but enforcement basically means following up every reported case of some company or person breaching planning regulations. It could be, for example, building a massive extension without planning permission, operating a business outside approved hours, or changing the use of a commercial building without planning permission when permission is needed (eg from retail to industrial).

    Ultimately, the stakes can be very high. The council can go through the courts to stop building work taking place, or even to pull a building down, or stop a business from operating. If the council gets things wrong, it can be forced to pay compensation,which means that the officers who work on cases like this have to proceed very methodically and carefully.

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