Council welcomes planning peer review

Residents are set to see further improvements to planning services as West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) embarks on a fresh action plan from a recent review.

With the creation of WNC at the height of the Covid pandemic in April 2021, planning services from the legacy councils in the former Daventry, Northampton and South Northants areas were brought together to be ‘safe and legal’ for day one of the new unitary authority.

Since then, the planning service is undergoing significant change with work taking place to align and improve systems and processes across the three predecessor areas into a new planning directorate. To support this work, the Council welcomed a peer review received in December 2022 by the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) and the Local Government Association (LGA).

As part of these planned improvements, work has been ongoing to implement a new centralised IT platform which will see one system available across West Northants. This is being delivered in two phases, with the Daventry and South Northants areas moving onto the new system in April, and the Northampton area being available from June.

We welcome the report from the planning peer review. As part of this work, and our planned delivery of a restructured service, we look forward to providing a new fit for purpose system for our residents and service users.

Following the outcome of the peer review, we will be presenting the outcomes and actions to cabinet at our meeting on Tuesday, 11 April. This will inform the further planned improvements and communications from our planning service.Cllr Rebecca Breese, Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, Built Environment & Rural Affairs

To find out more about planning services across West Northamptonshire, visit our Planning and Building Control page.

Residents can review the cabinet report here.