This article is from page 7 of the 2006-02-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 7 JPG
CLARE County Council’s planners are currently running on empty and are constantly hassled by councillors who sit at their desks questioning them night and day.
That is the personal view of Senior Executive Planner, Graham Webb, who indicated that council management needed to re-evaluate the time given over to councillors by planners.
Leaving the council this week after more than five years service with the local authority, Mr Webb said that the council’s Planning Department “is totally under-resourced.”
“A lot of the issues that arose recently on the quality of service from the Planning Department is because the planners are running on empty.
“They’re effectively trying just to live with the basics of dealing with the planning applications on time. Any added service that they can offer is effectively coming out of their own pockets, so to speak.
“That is a situation where you are going to have a high turnover of planners, because it is far more attractive to work in a well-resourced planning authority or planning consultancy.”
Mr Webb said that currently the council had 18 planners with 15 working in development control and three in forward planning.
“At any one time, allowing for leave, you have 10 planners and there are more demands through changes in procedures. Unfortunately, they are not left alone to get on with it.
“They are constantly hassled by councillors who sit at their desks and question them night and day about this, that and the other, so most of them don’t start work until 5pm each evening when the door shuts and it is then that they can get their head down and they need to work through to 7pm and 8pm just to get the work done.”
Planners don’t get paid overtime. Mr Webb said that the reforms under better local government were “seen as the solution to everything, but in fact it was only the baseline to address the issues.
“I wouldn’t point the finger necessarily at management but there is a lack of awareness at management at what they are expecting of planning staff and we try to drive it home at every opportunity.
“But the willingness to allow access to planners by members, a willingness to give members just what they want in terms of their own particular projects they have running at the time – it is all placing demands on the same planners, time and time again.”