Cllr failing to declare he is a Cllr on his own planning application

Question

Hi ( newbie here) - A Borough Cllr submitted his own planning application in respect of an extension on his own home but in the section on the application form where you have to declare if you work for the authority / elected member etc he has made the declaration  that he isn't an elected member ( incidentally no one employed by the Borough Council has picked up on it either!!!)

I realise that he can be reported to the Standards Committee of the Council but are there any other avenues of dealing with this

Answer 1

It’s possible - I say possible, that’s not to say excusable - that a planning agent or architect may have compiled and submitted the application without knowing that the client is a Borough Cllr.  Perfectly reasonable to have an agent submit an application
If the applicant had the application compiled and submitted by a professional 3rd party the applicant would not have completed the declaration on the application form - the agent will have done so.
It’s an interesting point - I’ve submitted 3 applications this week alone and I didn’t ask any of them if they were Cllrs or employees of LA.
I’m going to have to go to Planning Portal and re-check, word for word, the declaration - does it apply to the applicant or the agent....?

I’ll be back

Comments

“...Is the applicant and/or the agent one of the following:

(a) a member of staff
(b) an elected member
(c) related to a member of staff
(d) related to an elected member

But it goes on to say in the local planning authority....

So the question would be, is the borough Cllr a Cllr in the agency which performs the planning authority?

A parish Cllr would not be

Whether a borough Cllr would or not might depend upon whether it is a unitary authority?

What would be a conflict would be if the borough Cllr DIDN’T declare an interest if they were on committee which considered their own application.
Difficult to consider properly without knowing the organisational structure which applies.
In my example with a unitary county planning authority, a parish Cllr could / would declare “no” on the application form because a PC is not the local planning authority - county council is.
Not sure if that helps or not?