EFFORTS to protect green belt land in the district have secured a £50,000 boost.
Stratford District Council has been awarded the one off cash handout by the government to help tackle unauthorised development. It is part of a £2million pot being shared by councils across the country.
The £50,000 will be used to appoint a temporary compliance officer, within the council’s enforcement team, who would be responsible for monitoring planning conditions and ensuring all conditions were met development sites.
District regulatory spokeswoman Coun Anne Parry said: “The district council’s planning enforcement team is one of the busiest in the West Midlands and last year 23 formal actions were taken.
“The majority of the work is reactive and this funding will go towards recruiting an additional officer to assist with more proactive work, which will include monitoring compliance with planning conditions on major development sites.
“There are a number of major developments that have started or are scheduled to start in the next 12 months. Many of these have long lists of planning conditions; having this role in place will ensure that the development which the public expects to see happen, does actually take place in accordance with the approved details with no delays on site.
“The district is such a large rural area and the team does have to rely on intelligence and information from members of the public, but the team can’t be everywhere all the time and workloads have to be prioritised, so any additional resources to supplement the current level of council investment are very welcome.”
