The final meeting of Eden Planning Committee will take place at Voreda House next Wednesday morning, with councillors set to consider just one planning application before the committee is scrapped as part of a major overhaul of planning decision-making across Westmorland and Furness.
The meeting will consider an application recommended for approval by planning officers to rebuild and extend an existing barn to create a dwelling at a property in Morland.
It will be the final meeting of Eden Planning Committee before the existing area-based planning committees across Westmorland and Furness are replaced by a single Planning Committee covering the whole district.
The change was approved by Westmorland and Furness Council at its full council meeting last week, with councillors speaking against the changes being imposed through new national planning rules and raising concerns about the impact on local democracy and the ability of local councillors to have a say in planning decisions.
From 31 October, the existing planning committees will be dissolved and replaced by a single Planning Committee made up of 13 councillors.
The changes form part of the new National Scheme of Delegation for planning functions, which comes into force on 31 October 2026 and applies to all local planning authorities in England.
Under the new system, a wide range of planning applications will be dealt with by planning officers rather than elected councillors.
Householder applications and minor residential and commercial developments involving between one and nine dwellings will be among those that must be determined by officers. Other applications will also be presumed to be delegated to officers unless they meet specific criteria for referral to a planning committee.
As a result, only a relatively small proportion of planning applications are expected to reach the new committee, with the national rules setting a much tighter gateway for applications to be considered by elected members.
The new arrangements will also remove the existing ability for ward councillors to call in planning applications or for applications to be referred to committee simply because objections have been received. These practices will no longer be possible under the new national scheme.
Councillors at the meeting in Kendal last week raised concerns about the impact of the new arrangements on local democracy and the ability of local councillors to have a say in planning decisions. The council itself had identified a risk that replacing area-based committees with one district-wide committee could be perceived by local communities as a reduction in local democratic representation, with the potential for reduced public confidence in planning decision-making.
The move will reduce the number of councillors directly involved in planning decisions, while also reducing the number of committee meetings and associated members' allowances.
After the final meeting of a local planning committee in Eden, planning decisions will increasingly be made through officer delegation, with only applications meeting the new national criteria being brought before the new 13-member Planning Committee made up of councillors from across the Westmorland and Furness district.
The Morland barn conversion application will be the final planning application considered by Eden's planning committee before the local area based planning system comes to an end with future planning decisions for Penrith and Eden likely to be made in Kendal and Barrow.
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