Harrogate Borough Council

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6 AUGUST 2007:  PLANNERS in the county's busiest planning team are celebrating news that improvement in their handling of planning applications has been rewarded with the highest planning delivery grant (PDG) in North Yorkshire.

 

Harrogate Borough Council which handles 3000 planning applications a year received a PDG of £70,373 in May this year for meeting development control targets on the speed of handling planning applications and has now received a further cash boost in this second grant round of £259,684.  The second grant was made up as follows:

 

 

"PDG is an incentive based Government grant regime to support and improve the speed and quality of the planning service and to increase the amount of resources for the planning function in a local authority", said Councillor Don Mackenzie, Cabinet Member for Planning and Transport. 

 

"Grant award levels are based on performance criteria related to achieved and improving performance.  But this isn't just about numbers; it's about the quality of the service our planners provide.  We did need to invest to make sure that we could reach the very stringent timetable put on us for determining planning applications and this grant system has helped us do that.  The size of grant we have received plays testimony to staff and councillors who have worked hard to reach this level of performance.

 

"This district is prosperous and covers a broad spectrum of residential and business investment and that is why we have to deal with more and perhaps more contentious  planning applications than many of our neighbours.  However, we have also scored very highly on other areas of planning improvement.  The quality of our on-line planning service has also been recognised.  Residents can see at a glance the progress of a planning application and we now have over 55 per cent of representations being sent to us via our website.    ENDS

 

NOTE TO EDITORS:  Grants to councils in North Yorkshire were as follows:

 

Craven                        £165,611

Hambleton                 £199,251

Harrogate                   £259,684

Richmond                   £166,445

Ryedale                      £173,969

Scarborough              £201,110

Selby                          £108,775

York                            £190.116

North Yorkshire CC    £69,768