Ms Maria Graham:

I take on board that there has been a strong number of contributions around planning enforcement and the speed and resourcing issue. That is something we are very alive to and it is very useful to get engagement on that.

The Vice Chairman specifically asked about resources. We are working with the CCMA on local authority resources. Enforcement is one of the areas where we are looking to see the level of resources that are there, what might be required for future need and what we can do around shared resources in that area. It is a platform that will be important, whatever comes from the review, to make sure there is an alignment in terms of looking to the future, as well as the gap that might be there at the moment.

In terms of the generality, I obviously cannot comment on the particular review that is under way at the moment in the board. In the broader context, we are at a point where we have had the national planning framework and the regional strategies, and all of the local development plans are now going through that. For the first time, we have a national planning framework that really sets a context to planning and sets that hierarchy. By the end of next year, broadly, all of the development plans will have been through the process and the OPR will have looked at them.

We will then be in a different era. We will have development plans with which people will have engaged that are compliant with the national planning framework. That should limit or set the context for the board when it looks at things. There should not be that misalignment or rift leading to the potential to have material contraventions on the grounds of national policy. In that broad sense, if we move on to the future in terms of this planning legislation, I envisage that people would be able to have confidence that, once the development plan has been through the cycle and has been through the OPR, there is a development plan that has been agreed and sets the context for what is going to happen. Over time, we want those development plans to get clearer and clearer to people and for there to be more engagement with people at the development plan stage so that they know what is going to happen in their area.

The large-scale residential developments going back to local authorities is also part of that piece. It must be in the context of the housing supply targets that are set for the area, the need to deliver on them, and the need to build for the future communities. That will be an important piece in building confidence in the planning system. From the system’s perspective, it is important that the impartiality and the independence of the board, as well as the independence of the OPR, are maintained. There are legislative proposals in the context of the organisational review. We are looking at them in that context. If anything else emerges, we will have an opportunity to take it on board.