Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House, Abbey Close,
Abingdon, OX14 3JE
Email: comments@whitehorsedc.gov.uk
Telephone: 01235 520202

Vale of White Horse District Council

How to speak at a planning committee meeting

Members of the public can speak at Development Control Committee meetings in favour or against planning applications. The opportunity to speak is in addition to the ability to submit written comments to the Council before the meeting.

Who is entitled to speak at the meeting?

The opportunity to speak is available to applicants, objectors, supporters, and their representatives. In addition, a representative of the relevant Town Council, Parish Council or Parish Meeting may address the Committee.

What should you do if you wish to speak at a meeting?

You will need to contact Development Control either in writing, by e-mail, telephone or fax by no later than 12 noon on the last working day before the meeting - see How to contact Development Control for contact details. As most Development Control Committee meetings are held on Monday the deadline will usually be the Friday before. Late requests to speak cannot usually be accepted. If you wish to submit your request to speak in writing, you can use the form listed on the right hand side of the page. These forms are also available from the Council’s Local Services Points in Abingdon and Wantage. For maps showing where the Council's offices are please see How to find our offices. 

What happens at the meeting?

The Committee usually meets every third Monday at 6.30pm at the Guildhall in Abingdon. Need link to map You should arrive about 15 minutes before the start of the meeting. A planning officer will then advise you of the order of speaking and the procedure. Those applications where the public are speaking will be dealt with first, although this may still involve a wait for your item.

Once the meeting starts a planning officer will give a short presentation introducing the application, outlining the relevant planning considerations and giving the officer recommendation. The Town or Parish Council or Meeting representative will then be invited to make a statement not exceeding three minutes, followed by the objectors and finally the applicant and supporters. 

How long will I get to speak?

Representatives of the local Town or Parish Council or Meeting will get a total of three minutes to speak.

Objectors to an application will get three minutes in total shared between all objectors. Applicants and supporters of the plan will also get three minutes in total shared between all applicants and supporters.

This time limit will be strictly adhered to. A warning will be given towards the end of the period.

If there are more than one person wanting to speak about the same application it might be a good idea to agree a spokesperson before the meeting. If you wish to find out if anyone else is due to speak on the same application you can contact Planning Services after 2pm on the Friday before the meeting. Your name and telephone number will also be made available to other speakers on the application to enable contact to be made.

If no such arrangement is made, speakers will be heard until the three minute period has expired in the order in which their request to speak was received.

What should you say?

Remember to keep your statement brief and to the point.

The Committee can only take account of relevant planning considerations so you should limit your statement to planning issues such as planning policy, design, appearance, layout, traffic, highway safety, loss of amenity, noise, smell and disturbance. The personal circumstances of either the applicant or the objector are seldom relevant planning considerations. Los of property values or loss of a private view are not relevant planning considerations.

Please see Relevant planning issues for more details about what the Council can and cannot take into account when considering an application.

The Chair may refuse to allow or may stop a statement which in his or her opinion is irrelevant, offensive or objectionable. Petitions may be handed in to the Chair but the Committee will not accept photographs, drawings, slides or written material being shown or circulated at the meeting.

What happens after the public have addressed the Committee?

After the public statements have been heard the Chair may invite the Planning Officers to make further comments. The Committee Members will then debate the application and make a decision.