If you want to know how speculative developers get away with building massive estates on our precious Green Belt, you only had to look at Monday night’s Lichfield District Council (LDC) Planning Committee meeting (7 September 2026).

With no actual housing applications on the agenda, our elected representatives met to vote on a dense, dry, 50-page policy document titled the “Scheme of Delegation”.

To the casual observer, it looked like boring paperwork. But behind the jargon, this meeting was a quiet, historic surrender of your democratic rights. In a shocking 10 votes to zero unanimous decision, the committee voted to strip themselves—and you—of the power to decide major planning applications in public.

And how did our local councillors treat this massive loss of community power?

By complaining about administrative typos, arguing over whether Councillor Coe was supposed to be invited to a past meeting, obsessing over how the weekly planning list is formatted, and joking about taking six-week backpacking holidays to Thailand.

As a community, we deserve better. Below, we forensically dissect the meeting and break down the three smoking guns the planners let slip on-the-record—and how we are going to use their own words to defeat them.

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SMOKING GUN #1: The “500-Home Trap” is Formally Confirmed

For months, the Burntwood Action Group has warned that approving a developer’s “outline” plan is a trap. Planners always tell us: “Don’t worry, we are only agreeing to the principle of building here—we can control the details (like drainage, lighting, and layout) later.”

On Monday night, the planners officially admitted this is a lie.

During the debate, Kerry Challoner (LDC Planning and Development Manager) let slip a devastating technical truth: if an outline application is for fewer than 500 homes, all subsequent “reserved matters” (the detailed designs) are automatically decided by officers behind closed doors.

She even gave a real-world example:

“We had a site at Fradley… which we granted outline permission for… It’s 250 houses… the outline application could go before planning committee… but the reserve matters would never pass [to committee] because it’s under 500 and that’s set out as a schedule one application [delegated strictly to officers].”

What this means for Rake Hill:

The Rake Hill proposal (26/00630/OUTM) is for 225 homes. It falls squarely into this trap.

If our councillors vote to approve Rake Hill at the outline stage, they are legally voting to silence themselves forever. The unviable drainage strategy, the agricultural road-noise, the Staffordshire Police crime warnings, and the destruction of our ancient hedgerows will be signed off in private by unelected planning officers. There will be zero public debate, zero councillor votes, and zero community consultation.

We must shout this from the rooftops: You cannot “approve now and control later.”

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SMOKING GUN #2: The Planners’ Defeatism & “Clogging Up” the System

Why did LDC’s planning department design a system that bypasses public committee debates?

Kerry Challoner was remarkably transparent. She told the committee that they wanted the power to refuse applications in secret because dragging them to public meetings would “clog up” their administrative processes.

They also admitted that the new national rules—pushed by the Labour Government—are designed to bypass local councils to fast-track housing. Kerry noted: “It does feel like it’s watering down local decisions, but to be honest, it’s felt a bit like that for the last few years anyway…”

Why this is highly dangerous:

When unelected officers issue a planning refusal behind closed doors, they often write weak, bureaucratic, and poorly defended reasons. Speculative developers love officer-led refusals. They are incredibly easy for high-priced developer lawyers to tear apart and overturn at a national planning appeal.

We don’t want our councillors to hand over refusal powers just because they are worried about “clogging up” their agendas. We demand that major departures like Rake Hill are refused in public, with legally watertight, democratic, and defensible reasons drafted by the committee.

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SMOKING GUN #3: The Private Company Trap (The Clare Saint Conflict)

In a bid to reassure councillors that they weren’t signing away everything, the Committee Chair made a crucial admission on the record:

“…if we’ve got land or it’s a project being run by the district council or its subsidiary or the private company side, that is something that must come to us. That doesn’t change.”

Under the Government’s strict new propriety rules, any application linked to a council-owned commercial entity cannot be decided under delegated officer powers. It must go to the public Planning Committee to prevent corruption and bias.

Why this traps LDC:

Our designated Case Officer is split between her public role and her commercial work for LWMTS (Lichfield West Midlands Traded Services)—the council-owned private planning company that sells planning services to commercial developers.

Because LWMTS is a council subsidiary private company, LDC is caught in a legal catch-22. They cannot allow an LWMTS-linked officer to quietly determine a massive, unallocated Green Belt development like Rake Hill behind closed doors under delegated powers.

Any attempt by LDC planners to use their new “officer veto” to block Rake Hill from coming to a public committee is now a direct trigger for a Judicial Review on the grounds of apparent bias.

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This is NOT Over: We have an action plan for Full Council

While the Planning Committee voted 10-0 to recommend this anti-democratic scheme, it is not law yet.

The committee only has the power to make a recommendation. The Scheme of Delegation must still be voted on and formally adopted by the Full Council (all 30+ district councillors) at their upcoming meeting.

🛑 How You Can Help Right Now:

Don’t let them quietly sign away Burntwood’s Green Belt while planning their backpacking trips.

• Share this post far and wide. Let your neighbours know what LDC planners are trying to pull.
• Write to your local Ward Councillor. Ask them a simple, direct question: “Do you support the 500-home outline trap that strips elected members of our say on Rake Hill?”
• Subscribe to our newsletter to receive instant updates as we take this fight to the Full Council floor.

Lichfield Planners wanted to lock the public out. Instead, they have locked themselves in. Burntwood stands firm!