I fully agree with Councillor Snaith, when he describes the extent to which planning applications are now being decided by District Council officers, rather than being referred to the Council’s Planning Committee for a decision by elected councillors.

However, I disagree that this situation reflects an unfair bias against High Wycombe. This issue is just as important in other areas, both urban and rural.

I have analysed the situation across the district over the past 12 months, between October 2012 and September 2013, and this shows 46 applications were referred to committee during this period, of which 17 (37%) were for High Wycombe Town wards. Over the same period, only 12 (26%) were for rural wards. The percentage of total referrals made for rural areas was only slightly above their 24% share of the district population, while referrals from wards in Marlow Town were in line with the town’s 8% population share and from Princes Risborough far below their 5% population share.

This certainly does not reflect a bias in favour of these areas, as Cllr Snaith claims.

In fact, the main example of an area that had a greater share of referrals than its share of the population was Chepping/Wye Valley, part of the larger High Wycombe Urban Area, with 26% of referrals, but only 21% of the population.

Cllr Snaith was also incorrect to claim that Cllr Marshall, the previous committee chairman, was a representative of a rural ward. He was, in fact, a Marlow Town member, representing Marlow North & West. However, I do accept the overall situation he describes has become worse, particularly since changes were made to the rules which previously allowed a councillor to make such referrals, but which now give the final say to the committee chairman.

To gauge the extent of this problem, it is worth noting that the numbers of such applications covering the district as a whole now run at around 200-250 per four-week period, whereas the referrals to committee are frequently only in single figures (e.g. two at the July 3 meeting, six at the July 31 meeting, two on August 28 and four on September 25).

Although it is clearly unreasonable to expect all applications to go to committee, Cllr Snaith is correct that this seems far too low a figure for referrals, particularly in cases where significant objections are received.

Derek Done, Former chair of WDC Planning Committee, Marlow