A PARISH council chair has slated Cheshire East for failing to respond to planning and highways concerns saying it keeps the contact details of officers who could help ‘essentially secret’.

Simon Read told the full meeting of Cheshire East Council: “I'm sorry to say, in Pickmere, your council has a very, very poor reputation.”

He said the parish council had experienced ‘extreme difficulty’ trying to contact officers when seeking clarification on outstanding planning applications.

“The parish council officer or clerk is unable to liaise with planning application case officers because your officer contact details are essentially secret,” said Mr Read.

“There's also a substantial lack of resources in your planning enforcement team which means that breaches of planning control going un-investigated and un-remedied for months on end.”

He said highways issues are also a problem.

“Your council reacts extremely poorly to complaints about serious and dangerous highway surfaces and potholes,” said the parish council chair.

Cllr Mick Warren, chair of Cheshire East's environment and communities committee, said the planning department had been under extreme pressure because of a rise in the number of applications and because of Covid and this had resulted in a backlog.

 

Knutsford Guardian:

Cllr Mick Warren

“We have brought in additional external support to help us reduce the backlog of applications. We have also launched a full review of our planning service with a view to improving the customer experience and our communication with customers, recruiting more staff and reducing the backlog of applications,” said Cllr Warren (Macclesfield East, Ind).

He said the council had seven planning enforcement officers to cover the  borough and they investigate, on average, 1,000 reports of suspected breach of planning control each year.

“Resources are targeted to dealing with the most serious breaches of planning control where clear and demonstrable harm has been caused,” he said.

Cllr Craig Browne, chair of highways and transport, said: “I have received reassurance, and I'd like to extend that reassurance to you today, that your local area highways officer will be in touch to open communications with the parish council."