There is a quiet, highly calculated bureaucratic coup taking place in the committee rooms of Lichfield District Council (LDC) tonight.

Under the perfectly innocent-sounding guise of “aligning with new national legislation,” LDC’s planning officers are presenting a report to the Planning Committee. They want councillors to recommend a new local scheme of delegation to Full Council.

On paper, they will tell you this is a mandatory government requirement under the new Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. But that is only half the story.

While some changes are indeed coming down from London, LDC planners have quietly slipped highly controversial, optional, local “gold-plated” procedures into tonight’s proposal. If passed, these rules will permanently strip your elected Ward Councillors of their democratic powers to represent you on major development threats like Rake Hill (26/00630/OUTM).

Here is the technical reality of what LDC planners are planning behind closed doors, and why we are fighting back tonight.

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The Three Silent Power-Grabs in Tonight’s Proposal

1. The Local “Snatch-Back” Loophole

Under the new national rules, major residential schemes (like Rake Hill) will default to being decided by planning officers, unless they pass a “Gateway Test” agreed upon by the Committee Chair and the Planning Manager.

However, LDC’s planners have added their own local twist: even after an application successfully passes the Gateway Test and is referred to the elected Planning Committee, officers can subsequently snatch the application back to refuse it themselves.

This is a purely local choice, not a national requirement. By taking this power, officers are legally preventing councillors from debating the scheme in public and, crucially, preventing them from setting the final, legally defensible reasons for refusal. If a developer appeals an officer-drafted refusal, the community loses its democratic voice at the appeal table.

2. The Un-Appealable Officer Veto

LDC’s proposed Gateway Test establishes that if our local Ward Councillors and the Committee Chair believe an application has major local impacts and must go to committee, but the unelected Planning Manager disagrees, the case is automatically delegated to officers.

The elected Committee has zero right of appeal against this officer veto. A single planning officer will hold the unilateral power to lock the door on public debate and decide the fate of our Green Belt in private.

3. The Outline Approval Trap

This is the most dangerous trap of all. Under the new national scheme of delegation, if a major application of up to 500 homes is granted outline permission by the committee, all subsequent detailed applications (Reserved Matters) and the discharge of planning conditions must be delegated strictly to officers.

This means councillors can no longer vote to “approve the principle of development now and control the details—like drainage, building heights, levels, and landscaping—later.” Once outline consent is granted, the committee is legally shut out. The developer and the officers will negotiate the fine print behind closed doors, entirely out of public sight.

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The Mid-Game Rule Change

Changing the constitutional rules of the game while major, highly contentious, unallocated Green Belt applications are actively being determined is a direct violation of natural justice.

Speculative developers are already trying to exploit these pending changes. If LDC rushes this delegation scheme through, they will be handing a massive, developer-friendly shield to officers like Clare Saint, whose dual role with LWMTS—the Council’s own commercial planning company that sells services to private developers—already represents a severe conflict of interest and apparent bias.

By pushing decision-making into the shadows of officer delegation, LDC is making it incredibly easy for developer-friendly recommendations to slide through without public scrutiny.

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What BAG is Demanding Tonight

We have already briefed our supportive Planning Committee members. We have armed them with a robust, legally grounded Motion to Defer.

We are calling on the Planning Committee tonight to refuse to rubber-stamp this report and instead ask for more time. There is no legal rush: the Government’s national guidance is still explicitly in Draft status, and the final regulations do not take effect until 31 October 2026. Rushing to permanently rewrite LDC’s Constitution based on draft guidelines is legally premature and highly irresponsible.

We are demanding that LDC halts this vote and subjects these rules to a formal Scrutiny Committee, ensuring that six essential democratic safeguards are built into any final scheme:

1. No Officer “Snatch-Backs” once a case has been referred to the Committee.
2. A Formal Voice for Parish and Town Councils to submit evidence to the Gateway Test.
3. Automatic Re-Evaluation of the Gateway if new technical evidence or consultee objections (like the Lead Local Flood Authority’s drainage non-support) are submitted late.
4. Absolute Transparency with public online registers of all Gateway decisions and officer vetoes.
5. Strict Conflict of Interest Barriers mandating that any application linked to council-owned commercial entities like LWMTS bypasses officer delegation and goes straight to the public committee.
6. Fresh Gateway Assessments for any major material changes to existing permissions.

Burntwood Stands Firm

We will not let LDC planners quietly vote themselves into a job and vote our elected representatives out. We will keep you updated on the outcome of tonight’s crucial vote.

Save Our Green Belt. Protect Our Local Democracy!

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