Move to reduce number of Shropshire Council planning committees

Council leader Peter Nutting said the move was likely to be introduced in September, with fewer councillors willing to take seats on the committees.

He said the move will see the formation of a new North Planning Committee and South Planning Committee. Applications for Shrewsbury will mainly move to the north committee, with a cut-off point being the Dobbies roundabout on the A5.

Councillor Nutting said he hoped the move would see fewer meetings, but better agendas.

The proposal will be put to full council on May 16.

Councillor Nutting said: “We are looking at reducing the number of planning committees from three to two.

“It has become hard to recruit members to sit on the committees lately because people don’t seem to really realise that they are a whole day a month.

“Not only do you have all the papers to scrutinise, you then have a whole morning of site visits and then the afternoon meeting itself. By doing this we hope there will be fewer meetings, but the agendas for the meetings that do go ahead will be better.

“There are some meetings which don’t see big applications and this would help change that.

“It will, in effect, be a north committee including Shrewsbury and a south committee taking in everything from Dobbies roundabout and southwards.”