190913PCApprovedMinutes

APPROVED COM­MIT­TEE MINUTES

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

APPROVED MINUTES OF THE PLAN­NING COM­MIT­TEE held at Spey & Dee meet­ing rooms, Grant­own on Spey on 13^th Septem­ber 2019 at 11am

Mem­bers Present

Elean­or Macin­tosh (Con­vener) John Lath­am Peter Argyle (Deputy Con­vener) Douglas McAdam Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Wil­lie McK­enna Deirdre Fal­con­er lan McLar­en Pippa Had­ley Dr Fiona McLean Janet Hunter Wil­li­am Mun­ro John Kirk Dr Gaen­er Rodger

In Attend­ance:

Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning & Com­munit­ies Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­ory of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: Geva Black­ett Anne Rae Macdonald

			Xander McDade			Derek Ross
			Judith Webb

Agenda Items I & 2: Wel­come & Apologies

1. The Con­vener wel­comed all present.

Agenda Item 3: Minutes & Mat­ters Arising from the Pre­vi­ous Meeting

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 16 August 2019, held at Albert Hall, Bal­later were approved sub­ject to the fol­low­ing amendment:

• Through­out the doc­u­ment Gav­in Miles has two dif­fer­ent titles, it was con­firmed the

title with the word 'Communities' in it, was the correct one. To be changed
throughout to ensure consistency.

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

2. Action: None.

Agenda Item 4: Declar­a­tion of Interest by Mem­bers on Items Appear­ing on the Agenda

1. No interests declared.

Agenda Item 5: Review of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders

1. The Con­vener advised that fol­low­ing this dis­cus­sion and sub­ject to any amend­ments the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders would be rat­i­fied by the Board next week.

2. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which presents a review of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­mit­tee, fol­low­ing adop­tion of revised Stand­ing Orders for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity at the Board meet­ing on 14^th June 2019. He high­lighted that since writ­ing the paper he had noted in the March Board minutes that there had been an action to increase the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee quor­um from 10 to 13 mem­bers and apo­lo­gised for hav­ing omit­ted this from the draft Stand­ing Orders. He sug­ges­ted the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee dis­cuss this fur­ther, giv­en some poten­tial risks and dif­fi­culties with quor­um require­ments this may present. He went on to thank a Mem­ber for high­light­ing an incon­sist­ency in para­graphs 11 and 12 (pages 2 & 3) with regards to the peri­od of noti­fic­a­tion of people mak­ing rep­res­ent­a­tions and agreed the pro­posed amend­ment as 7 cal­en­dar days pri­or to the meeting.

3. The Con­vener advised that she would be more com­fort­able with the quor­um for Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to be set at 10 mem­bers. Dav­id Camer­on agreed with this sen­ti­ment. Dav­id explained that the danger with the pos­i­tion of set­ting aside Stand­ing Orders if a con­flict of interest only became appar­ent mid-way through a dis­cus­sion set­ting the quor­um too high may inad­vert­ently put pres­sure on a Mem­ber not to declare such con­flict in order to main­tain quor­um, or declare a con­flict with the res­ult of the item of busi­ness being deferred due to the meet­ing becom­ing inquor­ate. The Con­vener agreed and reminded the Com­mit­tee that the sug­ges­ted quor­um with Plan­ning Com­mit­tee should Stand­ing Orders be sus­pen­ded to sup­port con­sid­er­a­tion of an item of busi­ness is that it can­not drop below 7 mem­bers. There­fore, there is a

4. The Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the draft Stand­ing Orders and made the fol­low­ing points and obser­va­tions: a) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 9, sug­ges­tion made to add a sen­tence to provide

   clarity on how members should deal with email correspondence and explicitly
   state how they should take it forward. David Cameron agreed and advised that
   process is that Members are to ensure the correspondence is passed onto the
   Planning staff so that it can be treated as late representations and taken into
   account. Gavin Miles, Head of Planning and Communities added that late
   representations were more and more common for controversial applications
   and that those who make them deliberately want to exclude the staff however it
   is imperative that they are taken into account. Al
   

   b) Sug­ges­tion made to provide Mem­bers with a stock phrase to respond with upon

   receipt of such representations. Members wish to be able to recognise and
   acknowledge any contact while safeguarding the Committee's collective position.
   It was agreed that this was not appropriate for the Standing orders but David
   Cameron agreed and suggested drafting some guidance as an annex to the Code
   of Conduct.
   

   c) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 11, sug­ges­tion made to change the word ​‘any’ to

   'that' to make it clear that it not only one or all was intended, the Planning
   Committee at their discretion to decide as and when it was appropriate. This
   was agreed. A2
   

   d) At Para­graph 12 could it be explained why it was required? Dav­id Cameron

   advised that it was to make it explicit what the procedure was if the deadline
   was not met. A3
   

   e) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 11, con­cern raised for the 28 days bear­ing in mind

   people may only decide that they wish to speak at the Committee meeting after
   having read the officers report. Gavin Miles advised that it was currently set at
   28 days from the date of Call-in, and that posed an issue with timetabling. He
   explained that 7 days was the minimal deadline the team could reasonably do,
   while it also gives applicants the opportunity to withdraw from speaking if they
   feel it is no longer necessary. David Cameron agreed that it was 7 calendar days
   and agreed to make this more explicit. A4
   

   f) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 13, the cur­rent pro­ced­ure is that those who wish

   to make an oral representation to the Committee can do, it is not limited to 2
   spokespersons. Gavin Miles agreed and reported that where required, the
   Convener had allocated equal or agreed parts of the 10 minutes between
   spokespersons and that this had proved effective and fair. David Cameron
   

   g) At Para­graph 19 where there is a motion for a site vis­it, should this motion be

   put forward prior to the Planning Officer giving their report? The Deputy
   Convener advised that a member should not be coming along to a meeting with
   the view that a site visit is required prior to hearing the officer's presentation
   and all the representations being made. He added that Members should be
   coming along with an open mind and once having heard all the information,
   should they think a site visit is required before reaching a decision then at that
   point it would be the point to put forward that motion.
   

   h) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 24, if a mem­ber was not present at a site visit

   concern raised that they should not be able to take part in making the decision.
   David Cameron advised that this point had been debated at length when
   Standing Orders were last reviewed, with the Committee concluding that
   members develop an awareness of sites and developments through a number of
   means and an attendance at a site visit was not a compulsory aspect of
   participating in a determination. Gavin Miles pointed out that no new
   information was provided at site visits, the purpose of a site visit was to point
   out things on the ground in situ. Normally site visits were requested for a
   particular reason. He added that if an application was controversial Planning
   Officers would organise a site visit as a matter of course.
   

   i) The Con­vener high­lighted that the motion on the table would always be the

   planning officers' recommendation and the amendment would always be the
   change. This was noted and it was agreed to add a sentence to make this clear.
   A6
   

   j) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 25, con­cern raised with the pub­lic per­cep­tion of

   walking to the corner of the room to get legal wording to support any
   amendment(s). The Convener advised that she always tried to make it clear at
   any meeting when this occurs that the purpose is to get the legal wording, with
   members generally agreeing that this was a necessary element of good
   governance and ensuring clarity in decision making processes.
   

   k) Sug­ges­tion made to remove para­graph 32 as it was super­flu­ous. This was

   agreed. A7 (Post meeting note: in paper to Board David Cameron highlighted
   that, following further reflection, this paragraph is not in fact superfluous as
   there may be instances where there are no motions set in a paper which require
   a motion to be made by a member.)
   

   l) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 33, would the mover of a motion be the Planning

   Officer? David Cameron advised that a member may wish to bring the motion
   into light.
   

   m) Sug­ges­tion made at para­graph 26 to remove the words ​‘motion or’ from the

   sentence. This was agreed. A8
   

n) Query raised regard­ing the pur­pose of para­graph 34. The Con­vener explained this was to safe­guard the capa­city for an item of busi­ness to be put to a vote, where any mem­ber not already involved with the debate, motion or amendment(s) has the abil­ity to seek to draw exten­ded dis­cus­sion to a close with a motion to move to a decision. ○) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 40, did a writ­ten scheme of del­eg­a­tion already exist? Dav­id Camer­on advised that hav­ing a scheme of del­eg­a­tion gave a risk of error by omis­sion – with extreme dif­fi­culty in try­ing to cap­ture every pos­sible area of respons­ib­il­ity that is under­taken by the staff team and a con­sequent oppor­tun­ity for being chal­lenged. There­fore it was pre­ferred not to go down this route. He advised that he would make the respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee more expli­cit in the Terms of Ref­er­ence and bring it back to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee for com­ment pri­or to bring­ing it before the Board in Decem­ber for ratification.

1. The Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the review of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders presen­ted; b) Con­sidered fur­ther review lis­ted as amend­ments Al-A8 above be made pri­or to it being presen­ted to the Board for rat­i­fic­a­tion; c) Agreed to seek the Board’s approv­al to res­cind pri­or decision to increase Plan­ning Com­mit­tee quor­um to 13.

2. Action Points arising: i. Dav­id Camer­on to incor­por­ate the Plan­ning Committee’s com­ments and amend­ments into the draft Plan­ning Committee’s Stand­ing orders to be presen­ted to the Board for rat­i­fic­a­tion at their meet­ing next Fri­day 20^th Septem­ber 2019. ii. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Terms of Ref­er­ence to be revised and brought to

   the Planning Committee for comment and any amendments made prior
   to going before the Board for ratification on 6th December 2019.
   

iii. Dav­id Camer­on to draft guid­ance for Plan­ning Com­mit­tee mem­bers on

    how best to respond to late representations that would be annexed to the
    Board Members Code of Conduct.

Agenda Item 6: Any Oth­er Business

1. No items presented.

2. Action Points arising: None.

Agenda Item 7: Date of Next Meeting

1. Fri­day 11^th Octo­ber 2019 at Com­munity Hall, Boat of Garten.

2. Com­mit­tee Mem­bers are reques­ted to ensure that any Apo­lo­gies for this meet­ing are sub­mit­ted to the Clerk to the Board, Alix Harkness.

3. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.51.