§ Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will list those planning authorities in England and Wales the memberships of which are not all directly elected; (2) if he will list those planning authorities in England and Wales, none of whose members are directly elected.
§ Mr. MonroThe principal authorities carrying out functions under the Town and Country Planning Acts are directly elected local authorities. However, in the Peak and Lake District national parks, the functions of the local planning authorities are vested in the joint and special106W planning boards respectively. None of the members of the board are directly elected, but the majority are county councillors.
In the other eight national parks, most of the functions of the local planning authorities are discharged by national park committees which are committees of the county councils concerned. The members of the committees are appointed on the same basis as the Peak and Lake District planning boards.
It is also intended that the urban development corporations proposed for London and Merseyside Docklands should be local planning authorities for their areas.
§ Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table listing all the planning authorities in England and Wales, the number of planners each authority employs and the number of planning applications which each authority dealt with in the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.
§ Mr. Giles ShawInformation in this detail is not published by the Department. However, for England and Wales as a whole the number of full-time equivalent staff employed in local authority planning departments in mid-September 1980 was 21,969. This figure includes administrative support and staff involved in building control. It does not include the staff of national park authorities. The number of planning applications dealt with by local planning authorities in England in the 12 months ending March 1980—the most recent 12-month period available—is estimated at 517,000. The corresponding figure for Wales is provisionally estimated at 33,000.
Detailed figures on staff in local authorities have been collected independently and published by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. A copy is available in the House of Commons Library.
Statistics on planning applications decided by each planning authority in England are also available in the House of Commons Library.