Gwynedd Council’s new county planning committee will meet for the first time next week. The new committee of 15 councillors selected on the basis of political and geographical balance will replace the former arrangement of three area planning committees and one central planning committee.
The first meeting of the new Gwynedd Council Planning Committee will be held on Monday, 11 October at the Frondeg meeting room in Pwllheli. The Committee which will meet once every three weeks will visit the Dwyfor, Arfon and Meirionnydd area in turn.
The decision to introduce a single county planning committee for Gwynedd Council was taken by councillors in May, and follows a period of review led by the Chairs and Vice-chairs of Gwynedd Council’s Area Committees.
Councillor Gareth Roberts, Gwynedd Council’s Senior Portfolio Leader for the Environment said:
“This new arrangement will help to achieve consistency in the Council’s decisions on planning applications across the county and increase public confidence in the planning decisions that the authority makes. We have a county-wide Unitary Development Plan in place, and it makes sense that we are now moving to a situation where one planning committee decides on all planning applications in Gwynedd.
“This new arrangement will enable committee members to receive specialist training on planning issues. The new system is also expected to help deliver an estimated efficiency saving to the Council of approximately £100,000.”
It should be noted that the committee will deal with planning applications in all parts of the county of Gwynedd except those which are within the boundaries of the Snowdonia National Park.
