Parish Council Planning Authority

Question

We are dealing with a Planning Application to demolish a preparatory school building and replace it with a Care Home comprising 22 care apartments and a 25 bed care home.

It's in a conservation/residential area but in principle this sort of development is permitted by the Neighbourhood/Local Plan and  indeed potentially delivers a range of beneficial social and economic benefits to us as a community.

Objections we are seeing relate to conservation area/street scene mass (three stories) parking/traffic/noise/light pollution and so on.

As a Parish Council
- what is the planning framework against we should assess this application (as opposed to the District Council)
- how material are the localised objections
- are we at any risk in choosing to over ride them?

Answer 1

You would need to make your objections using the National Planning Policy Framework, with reference to your local plan.  The NPPF covers elements relating to historic and conservation areas, as well as sustainability and environmental considerations

As you have an adopted plan, the District Council have an obligation to take this into consideration when making their decision or recommendation.
If your Neighbourhood plan supports such a development on the basis of economic benefit to the parish that is great but you still have the right to object and insist that the development is in keeping with the rest of the surroundings.  There would be no comeback if your objections and genuine, factual and based on the NPPF, I would imagine.

Answer 2

A Parish council is only a Statutory consultee so your title is misleading.  As you don't deal with it by way of determination your comments carry the  same weight as an individual resident's would.

Your comments don't have to be made against any framework, but if you do so for credibility purposes I would refer to the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 and the district council local plan as as well as the National Planning Policy Framework.