Planning Inspectorate
Encyclopedia
The Planning Inspectorate for England and Wales (Yr Arolygiaeth Gynllunio
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

) is an executive agency
Executive agency
An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

 of the Department for Communities and Local Government
Department for Communities and Local Government
The Department for Communities and Local Government is the UK Government department for communities and local government in England. It was established in May 2006 and is the successor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, established in 2001...

 of the United Kingdom Government. It is responsible for determining final outcomes of planning
Planning
Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior...

 and enforcement appeals and public examination of local development plans
Local Development Frameworks
A local development framework is the spatial planning strategy introduced in England and Wales by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and given detail in Planning Policy Statements 12...

. It also deals with a wide variety of other planning-related casework including planning appeals - about, for instance, shop signs and advertisement displays on hoardings, bus shelters etc, and cases on which Inspectors report to the Secretary of State concerned on planning applications requiring ministerial approval.

Structure

The Inspectorate is headquartered in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, with a separate office in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

 dealing with planning appeals in Wales. The Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters' Unit in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and the Planning Appeals Commission in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 are the equivalent institutions for those countries.

Authority and powers

Planning Inspectors, appointed by the Secretary of State and said 'to stand in the shoes of the Secretary of State', are given power by Schedule 6 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
Town and Country Planning Act 1990
The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is an act of the British Parliament regulating the development of land in England and Wales-Section 1:...

 and the Town and Country Planning (Determination of Appeals by Appointed Persons) (Prescribed Classes) Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/420) to determine the appeals which are mostly against refusals of local planning authorities to grant planning permission.

Reception

The planning system including the role of the Inspectorate has been criticised by journalists and MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

s, including Peter Wilby and Kris Hopkins
Kris Hopkins
Kristan Frederick Hopkins is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Keighley in West Yorkshire.-Political career:...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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