A Wealden planning committee will ‘effectively cease to operate’ as a result of national changes, the council’s leader has said.

On Wednesday (July 15), Wealden District Council agreed to make constitutional changes in response to government planning reforms, which are due to come into force later this year.

These will introduce strict new rules on what types of applications must be decided by officers or may be referred to a planning committee.

Council leader Rachel Millward (Green) said: “You will have seen in our papers today that there are significant changes coming to the planning committee system.

“Effectively, our minor committees will cease to operate after this October.

“The changes outlined have very much been imposed from on high and will did vigorously oppose these [changes]; you can see the letter we wrote within the papers

“We believe that local democracy is really, really important and adds so much value to planning. But we have no choice now but to bring our own constitution in line with the law.

She added: “I think it is going to take time for everyone to adjust and realise what we’ve lost actually in terms of community representation, flexibility and true localism in decision making. But as I say it is all beyond our control.”

The constitutional changes do not abolish the minors planning committee because there will still be some applications which could fall within its terms of reference.

Council papers state the government’s reforms are intended to create a “two-tier system” for planning applications.

The legislation requires decisions on most minor developments — including any residential development with nine or fewer homes — to be made by planning officers.

This would also be the case for most reserved matters applications, except for those tied to housing developments involving the construction of more than 500 homes.

While other types of applications could potentially be brought to a planning committee, the legislation says there should be a “presumption” that decisions should be made by officers in most cases.

Due to the way the legislation is set up, most of the applications which are potentially eligible for a committee decision would be major applications.

The council’s amended constitution will define these as applications for developments with: more than 10 homes; more than 1000 sq. metres of new floor space; and/or a site area of more than one hectare.

But some non-major forms of applications would also be eligible for a committee decision. These would include applications for listed building consent and “own-interest” applications, which cover applications submitted by councillors, officers or the council itself.

The amended constitution will allow for the minors committee to decide these applications.

The council introduced its system of splitting applications between a majors and minors committee as part of another constitutional change in May last year.

Prior to this date, the council had operated two place-based committees, which split applications between the north and south of the district.