Call for councillor training in development realities

MPs have been urged to back calls that local councillors should be required to undergo training in the economic realities of development.

That call came from the British Property Federation when it gave evidence to the Commons Communities and Local Government Committee Inquiry into planning skills which has begun its oral sessions.

Liz Peace, chief executive of the BPF, told committee chair Phyllis Starkey MP that it was "incredible that those involved in a quasi-judicial process do not have to have formal training". The committee heard that developers remained concerned that the Government had not acted on Sir John Egan's review of the skills needed to support sustainable communities. He had recommended obligatory training for councillors.

The BPF also told MPs that it was keen to see the Government provide formal guidance on the appropriateness of developers funding additional local authority staff and resources to help deal with aspects of large scale developments.

Developers have already negotiated such arrangements in places like Birmingham but Peace acknowledged that "many authorities are reluctant to enter into such arrangements as they fear accusations of impropriety".

Earlier, witnesses from the Planning Officers Society (POS) highlighted the pressures faced by planning authorities who lacked suitably skilled and experienced senior staff able to handle major development schemes and the requirements of the new-look development plan regime.

MPs were told that currently many planning authorities were dependent on Australian planners, many on short-term contracts.

Lynne Anderson, a consultant to the POS, said: "If you took them away, most authorities in the South East would collapse."

The committee was also told that after some years in decline, the number of students applying for places in undergraduate planning schools was on the increase.

Read the British Property Federation press release

Roger Milne

8 May 2008