§ Mr. Wintertonasked 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 Macclesfield Borough Council, Macclesfield Rural District Council, Bollington Urban District Council, Disley Rural District Council and Alderley Edge Urban District Council, and the new Macclesfield Borough Council, namely, the total number of such appeals, the lengths of time between lodging of the appeals and the hearings and the lengths of time between the hearings of the appeals and the ministerial decisions.
§ Mr. OakesBetween 1st November 1972 and 31st October 1974 a total of 109 planning appeals were received, relating to the areas covered by the authorities mentioned. Sixty-nine of these appeals followed the written procedure, six are in abeyance, 17 have been withdrawn and four have been received only very recently. Of the remaining 13 appeals, in six cases the inquiry has not yet been held. In seven cases local inquiries have been held but decisions are awaited on four of them. The average time between the lodging of the appeals and the inquiries in these seven cases was 54 weeks. The average time between the inquiries and the issue of the decisions in the three decided cases was seven weeks. All these cases were decided by inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose.