Planning Report for Croydon City Council
The following is a report that will give information on a Planning meeting organised by Croydon City Council.
The report will show three main items. These are: * The main advocates of the meeting, their roles and how they influenced the meeting * How the committee deals with planning applications * What happened at the meeting to allow public speaking and the process involved The report will also give other minor details on other aspects of the meeting. The first section of the report will review what happened at the meeting.The second section will be more concise and discuss the three main points laid out above. The second section will also include relevant examples. The end of the second section will also discuss other relevant parts of the meeting to try and give an idea of the meeting itself.
Section 1 Pre-meeting Prior to the meeting, the council placed some items on their internet website. One of these items was an agenda for the meeting. This agenda was designed to show the members of the public and the advocates of the meeting what the council planned to cover in the meeting.This allows members of the public, who were allowed to attend this meeting to know what to expect at the meeting. All of the details of the meeting were on www.
crydon. gov. uk. Meeting location The meeting itself took place at the Croydon town hall. This is where a most of the councils’ meetings take place. Having it in this central location makes it easier for everyone to know where to go and what to expect.
Details of the location were placed on the council website prior to the meeting. The meeting itself The chairman was the person who began the meeting.The chairman in this case was a member of the local council; his name was Councillor Chris Wright. He began by welcoming everyone, including the members of the public, to the meeting. He continued by talking over the agenda for the meeting. He explained how the meeting was going to take place and what the aim of the meeting was.
He then introduced the other member of the committee and said which members were absent. In all there were nine other members of the committee at the meeting and he explained that there were three absent. The meeting was also backed up by a vice chairman; his name was Councillor Jason Perry.Within the Town hall the committee sat on a long table at the back-end of the hall. The members of the public, of which there were only a handful, were positioned on chairs in the middle of the hall.
The members tables was laid out in a fashion that allowed all members to be able to communicate with each other, while at the same time allowing the members of the public to be able to see and hear what was going on during the meeting, and to have a chance to put their points across when the time came. The “official business” section of the meeting began by reviewing the previous planning meeting from the previous week.This was only briefly reviewed and there did not seem to be any disagreement about decisions made at the last meeting and the chairman made it obvious that he wanted to continue swiftly with the current meeting. The chairman then moved the meeting on to the part where the council make decisions on planning applications that they have received. All of the members had pieces of paper information in front of them that had the details of the applications that they were discussing and subsequently voting on.
This part of the meeting was not open to the public.After the committee had their own consultation they moved onto business that involved members of the public. The meeting then continued with talks of recent appeals that have been put forward. This part of the meeting was not open to the public. The final part of the meeting involved going over planning inquiries that will be discussed by the committee in the future. The meeting itself lasted approximately sixty minutes and the members of the council and the members of the public seemed satisfied with all of the outcomes.
Section 2 Main advocatesAs there were only ten members of the committee, all of the members were able to get there point across sufficiently well. The chairman was always in control and no one ever seemed to talk out of turn, this was mainly down to the fact that chairman kept everyone under control. Naturally the chairman was in control of all of the discussions and he was the one who moved all parts on. The chairman was always the one who allocated who should be talking at each specific point within the meeting. The chairman did not seem to like anyone talking out of turn and nipped that in the bud early on.
Out of the rest of the committee, no one really stood out. This was probably down to the fact that the chairman was always in control plus the fact that there was very little to no disagreement within the committee. Out of the people from the public who actually asked question, there was no one who stood out as disagreeing with the responses they received from the committee. This was probably due to the simplicity of the questions which only required quick-fire anwers. The questions themselves had no potential for controversy.
Dealing of planning applicationsThe following section will explain what happened during the section of the meeting which dealt with planning applications. There were three different applications that the committee discussed. Each of them was dealt with in the same way. This was done by the chairman naming the case. Each of the members had what appeared to be details on each case in front of them throughout the meeting. The chairman then gave a brief detail of each case.
He then allowed each of the other members of the committee to give their own opinion on the case.He did this by starting at one end of the table and going down the line until everyone had said their piece. The chairman then put the decision to a vote. This was done by a show of hands. The following is an example of one of the cases.
Location: Library, Brigstock Road, Thornton Heath, CR7 Description: Alterations and refurbishment of existing Library to include replacement two storey side extension and erection of new single/two storey front/side extension incorporating a new cafe; alterations to main entrance and provision of access ramp; alterations to existing garden to provide new community garden at the rear.Permission was granted for this application after it was put a vote. Public speaking process The following will explain the section of the meeting that allowed public consultation. The section that involved public consultation was the shortest section of the meeting. There was one agenda that was being covered.
The chairman briefly discussed it and asked the members of the public if they had any questions. A few people asked some questions and the committee took notes on what the members of the public asked. The committee then answered the members of the public’s questions quite swiftly.The members of the public seemed satisfied with the responses that they got. Post-meeting Following the conclusion of the meeting, all of the documentation was published on the council website. This includes the minutes of the meeting and the details of the cases that the committee voted on.
General information on the meeting When presenting the information the committee did not show any of the details on any kind of OHP or slideshow presentation. This was probably due to the very few matters that were being covered in the meeting. The town hall in which the meeting took place was not very big.This meant that whenever someone was speaking they were heard by everyone in the room and there were no acoustic problems. As there were quite few people at the meeting there were not many occasions when people were talking over each other. This was also down to the fact that most of the speaking was done by the chairman and he was in control of who was allowed to speak.
There were very few disagreements between members of the committee. This was because all of the members of the committee were all allocated time to speak and kept to it as they shoulda.
