§ Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will give the following details about planning appeals held in the last two years in the areas covered by the Shrewsbury Borough Council, the Atcham Rural 233W District Council and the Shrewsbury District Council, namely, the total number of such appeals, the lengths of time between the lodging of the appeals and the hearings and the lengths of time between the hearings of the appeals and the ministerial decision.
§ Mr. OakesBetween 1st November 1972 and 31st October 1974 a total of 45 planning appeals were received relating to the areas covered by the former Shrewsbury Borough Council, the former Atcham Rural District Council and the Shrewsbury District Council. Twenty-four of these appeals followed the written procedure, two are in abeyance, four have been withdrawn and four have been received only very recently. Of the remaining 10 appeals, two are waiting for inquiry dates to be arranged. In eight cases local inquiries have been held but decisions are awaited on five of them. The average time between the lodging of the appeals and the inquiries in these eight cases was 59 weeks. The average time between the inquiries and the issue of the decisions in the three decided cases was 21 weeks. Only one of these cases was decided on behalf of the Secretary of State. The other two were decided by inspectors appointed by him.