At their meeting on Wednesday evening (10th October), Councillors heard that Ashfield had been awarded a total of £200,919 in Planning Delivery Grant (PDG).

Andrew Smith, Head of Community and Economic Promotion, explained that PDG awards had traditionally been used to help support and develop the Planning Service.

“The funding is awarded by Government based principally on the performance of Council’s in dealing with planning applications, preparing development plans and developing its information technology provision. This Council has performed extremely well receiving £1.7 million pounds over the past five years which is a particularly high level when compared with other councils in the region. The hard work of the Planning Service has again been rewarded this year.”

During discussion of the item, Councillors were requested to ensure that planning related commitments within the Corporate Plan are realised and that appropriate expenditure takes place to maintain and improve the level of the Planning Service.

In previous years, Planning Delivery Grant has been invested in a number of areas to improve service delivery including staff retention, staff and councillor training, additional staff resources and information technology.

“This investment has enabled the Council to continuously improve its Planning Service and the funding will be invested to maintain the high level of performance and to manage an ever expanding workload,” said Mr Smith.

“It is considered that the current year’s allocation should be used in a similar way to maintain the progress achieved so far and particularly to meet the challenge of implementing the new Local Development framework”.

It was agreed that the funding would be shared into three areas on this occasion, with £18,119 allocated to staff retention and training; £53,800 on staff resources and £19,000 to support the Local Development Framework.