New national regulations coming into force on 31 October 2026 required Dartford Borough Council to cut its planning committee from 17 to 13 members and hand more decisions to officers, with the full council considering the changes at its meeting on 12 October 2026.

Dartford Borough Council’s planning committee was set to be reduced in size and renamed under government regulations due to take effect on 31 October 2026, with the full council considering the necessary constitutional changes at its General Assembly meeting on 12 October 2026.

Smaller committee and new name

The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026 impose a statutory maximum of 13 members on planning committees. Dartford’s Development Control Board currently has 17 members, so officers recommended reducing it to 13. The proposed political composition from 31 October 2026 for the remainder of the municipal year was nine Conservative, three Labour and one Reform member.

Officers also recommended renaming the body the Planning Committee, replacing the Development Control Board title, which the report described as “very outdated”. The name change was proposed to take effect from 1 November 2026.

More decisions going to officers

The regulations introduce a national scheme of delegation that divides planning applications into two categories. Schedule 1 applications must be determined by officers and cannot be referred to committee under any circumstances. Schedule 2 applications carry a presumption of officer determination, but can be referred to committee only if both the nominated officer (the Chief Planner) and the nominated member (the committee chair) agree, and the application meets at least one of two statutory criteria: that it raises an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area, or that it raises a significant planning matter having regard to the development plan.

The report noted three significant changes for residents and ward members: ward members will no longer be able to request that an application is reported to committee; no Schedule 1 application can be sent to committee regardless of the number of objections received; and the volume of representations on a Schedule 2 application will not in itself be sufficient to trigger a committee referral.

Administrative burden and judicial review risk

Officers warned that the requirement to record and publish every “Gateway Test” decision — the process by which the nominated officer and member agree whether to refer an application — would represent “a significant additional administrative burden on the Council” and would increase the officer resource needed to discharge the statutory duty of determining planning applications.

The report also cautioned that failure to comply with the regulations from 31 October 2026 could expose committee decisions to judicial review, potentially leading to those decisions being quashed.

Officers proposed a triage system, to be set out in a separate appendix, to manage the volume of Schedule 2 applications and avoid delays, with delegated authority given to the Assistant Director of Planning and Place to review and update the process in consultation with the committee chair.

The council had not published the minutes of the meeting at the time of writing, so the committee’s decision is not yet on the public record.

Sources

Top image: illustrative, computer-generated. Illustrative image generated by AI — this is not a photograph of Dartford Borough Council’s chamber or any real council building.