Surrey Heath misses out on over £800,000 of Government grants

9.53.39pm GMT Mon 3rd Apr 2006

Shocked residents are finding out the true cost of a Conservative-controlled Surrey Heath Council. Besides the catalogue of cost overruns and poor budgeting seen in the last year, it was revealed today that Surrey Heath has lost out on over £800,000 of Government grants because of the poor performance of its planning department.

Each year, the ODPM (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) awards substantial amounts of grant moneys in order to encourage local authorities to improve their performance on planning matters. In particular, ODPM is interested in the time it takes for a planning decision to be reached, and rewards authorities that have improved their performance to meet national targets.

On March 30th, the Planning Delivery Grant awards for 2006/7 were announced, and it seems that Surrey Heath will lose out again. The figures for councils in the local area were:

· Rushmoor £403,143

· Hart £305,558

· Woking £312,035

· Guildford £339,875

· Surrey Heath £91,211

Judged on PDG awarded, Surrey Heath ranks 365th out of the 405 local authorities in England & Wales! So it appears that, whilst Surrey Heath has been complaining of a national shortage of qualified planning officers as the reason for its problems, other authorities have just been getting on with it.

Looking at the performance of Surrey Heath over three years shows that the Borough is a persistent poor performer, and is not improving. The average grant received by the other 4 local councils above over three years was £1.2m each. For Surrey Heath, the figure was £360,000. That amounts to over £800,000 in grants that Surrey Heath has missed out on over this period.

"If we had invested just a fraction of these amounts in improving the planning service, we wouldn't be in the situation we are now," said Lib Dem Council Group Leader, David Whitcroft. "The Council's poor performance on planning response times has not only harmed the local economy, it has added to the strain on local residents, who are having to pay another £250,000 more than needed in Council Tax this year."