COUNCILLORS have voted not to reduce the amount of time speakers can address the planning committee at Lichfield District Council.
Currently both the applicant and objectors are allowed five minutes to express their views, while ward councillors are entitled to ten minutes – although this has only been used on four occasions across the last 22 meetings.
In 2023, the council’s overview and scrutiny committee recommended reducing speaking time for everyone addressing the planning committee to three minutes in a bid to allow for more efficient meetings.
Cllr Diane Evans was among those to support a reduction in speaking time. She said:
“I think ten minutes for ward members is too long because I think if you’re not careful you switch off anyway when listening for a long time to what is sometimes repetitious.
“I would go for five minutes for everyone with the option of the chair using the opportunity to extend if necessary.”
Cllr Richard Stephenson called for a more sophisticated system to be used instead.
The Alrewas and Fradley representative said the there should be different approach for minor and major applications or those which received significant public attention.
He said:
“I find it deeply problematic that we have exactly the same speaking rights for one house as to when someone wants to build 750 houses in my ward. It affects hundreds of people where 600 of them have written into this council, so I would like to see perhaps a little bit more of a sophisticated system.
“It seems to me that the current method is, to be frank, a bit of nonsense where one extension on one house gets as much attention as 750 new homes that many destroy people’s lives.”
Now a further options paper will be presented to councillors at a later date to include suggestions of a right of rebuttal and whether speaking times could be proportionally based.
But councillors on the planning committee at Lichfield District Council voted to keep the status quo and not change the current speaking arrangements at the present time.
