Planning Decisions

How we determine planning applications

Planning Permission

The Council can grant permission unconditionally or subject to conditions as it thinks fit, or can refuse permission. In considering an application, the Local Planning Authority must have regard to the "provisions of the development plan, so far as material to the application, and to any other material considerations." The Council is not bound absolutely by the provisions of the development plan, but if it wishes to approve any application which departs significantly from the plan it must inform the National Assembly for Wales which can call it in for their determination.

There is no legislative definition of what is "material". The Council will take into account relevant planning policies and standards, and have regard to the site's previous planning history and to Government circulars and policy notes. Decisions on previous appeals also provide guidance as to what are relevant considerations. Once the stages of consultation and publicity have been undertaken, the planning officer dealing with the application will, after visiting the site, present a report for submission either to the Head of Planning and Transportation if the application is within the "officer delegated" category or to the Council's Planning Committee if not.

Generally over 80% of the applications received are determined under the Council's officer delegated scheme. Find out more about the Officer Delegation Procedure for Determining Applications here. In very general terms, the smaller proposals e.g. house extensions, advertisements, changes of use etc. are usually "officer delegated" whereas the larger or potentially more controversial applications are determined by the Planning Committee. A list of recent officer delegated decisions is available to view here.

Neighbours and statutory consultees are consulted in order to seek their views on planning applications which may affect them.  Advisory notes for neighbours and consultees are available to advise interested parties on those matters which can be considered as material considerations to planning applications; and those matters which are not considered to be planning matters and will not be given any weight in the determination of the application.

Commenting on planning applications which are to be reported to Committee.

When comments are submitted in relation to planning applications that are being reported to Planning Committee, outside of the statutory consultation period of 21 days, it should be noted that those comments may be received too late to be included within the formal committee report. This is because reports are usually prepared some two weeks before the actual Planning Committee Meeting.

In order to ensure that members of the public and other organisations/bodies with an interest in a particular application are not placed at a disadvantage, the Authority will accept and report observations received up until 12 p.m. on the day before Committee. These comments are circulated in the form of a late report to Committee members on the evening before Committee by Email and are presented in hard copy form at the actual meeting.

Current planning applications may be inspected at the Dock Office reception during normal office hours. However, the case officer may not be available without a prior appointment.

Find out more about access to planning application files here.