Wigan councillors cautioned over developer talks

A local authority lawyer has warned of a risk that councillors could be seen as having ‘nailed their colours to the mast’ if they speak to developers before an application is submitted, which could subsequently rule them out from voting on the plans.

It comes after the Conservative group leader Michael Winstanley called in a decision about community involvement in the planning process for further scrutiny, saying the current policy does not involve elected members enough.

Speaking at a meeting this week, he explained his motives for the rare move.

He said: “This isn’t a process that we use very often, so I thought very long and hard about it.

“I instigated this call in when the statement of community involvement was instigated at the beginning of October.

“I was particularly concerned about the lack of reference to elected members or the desirability to include elected members in the pre-application decisions.

“This is contrary to the advice of the Planning Officers’ Society, the Planning Practice Guidance and the Local Government Association’s planning advisory service.”

Coun Winstanley called for the updated statement of community involvement to be amended to include member involvement at the pre-planning stage.

However, Pemberton councillor Paul Prescott, the portfolio holder for planning, environmental services and transport, said legislation has not allowed the councils to request pre-application meetings since 2011.

He said the council is invited to these meetings by developers but it has no power to insist on the presence of any other party, including elected members.

The Labour councillor explained that the statement of community involvement was simply being updated because it does not refer to the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework or reflect Covid restrictions.

Planning department staff also assured the scrutiny committee that the council ‘encourages greatly’ developers to engage with councillors.

But Simon Ward, group lawyer for the place department, said councillors should tread cautiously when they have conversations with developers.

He said: “We do caution members about getting too involved at the pre-application stage because there is a risk that that may mean that they can’t take any part in the decision-making process if it comes before committee.

“And members have to be aware that it’s not simply their views about their level of involvement, but how they can be perceived by members of the public.

“So it is quite probable and possible that a member of the public may draw the wrong conclusions from seeing a member of the council having an interaction with the developer and may automatically assume a member has therefore sided with the developer and has nailed their colours to the mast – which may not be the case, but members have to be incredibly careful because it could have legal consequences for the council should they then become involved in the decision-making process later down the line.

“As a legal department, whilst not discouraging members at all from having involvement with developers in that pre-application stage, we’d always caution them against how that could be perceived by members of the public and there are certain safeguards that we put in place should a member take that level of connection with developers at that particular stage.”

Conservative councillor Adam Marsh said he accepts the council’s position, but asked for officers to come back to the committee with a proposal on how members can be more included in pre-application conversations.

Labour councillor Dane Anderton proposed that the scrutiny committee takes no action on the statement. Only three members voted against the proposal.

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