Consultation: Government planning committee consultation ↗
Hastings Borough Council. The closing date is the one its own page gives: “Closed: Wednesday 23 July 2025”.
Who decides planning applications from 31 October
From 31 October, which applications go to the planning committee, and can objections still send one there?
The short account
How it began
New regulations, the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, come into force on 31 October 2026. 6
They set out which planning applications are for officers to decide and which may be referred to the Planning Committee. 8
The council's report says the National Scheme of Delegation comes into force from 31 October 2026 regardless of local views. 7
What changes
An application's category decides whether it is for officers to decide or whether it can potentially be considered by the Planning Committee. 11
The report's proposed position is that call-in rights cease, and applications may reach the committee only through the Gateway Test, for schedule 2 type applications only. 12
The report says the proposed amendments remove local referral routes, including ward councillor call-ins, objection thresholds and petition-based referrals, and replace them with a national framework. 15
It says residents will still be able to make representations on applications and take part through the existing consultation and public speaking procedures. 16
Where it stands
At the Planning Committee on 12 August 2026, the Planning Services Manager reminded members that from 31 October 2026 applications of the type before them would be determined by officers. 3
A report to Full Council on 23 September 2026 recommended noting the changes to the council's constitution, taking effect on 31 October 2026, and a review of the new arrangements after six months. 4
The minutes of that Full Council meeting are not on the record yet. 4
The timeline
Proposed
Noted
Planning Committee: Printed minutes
The minutes say: “The Planning Services Manager reminded Members that the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions would come into force on 31 October 2026 and would mean that applications of this type would then be determined by Officers.”
Hastings Borough Council.
Proposed
Full Council: Final National scheme of delegation report V2 Legal Amends 15.09
Hastings Borough Council
The report recommends: “Note the necessary amendments to Part 5 (Planning Protocol) and Part 8 (Standing Instructions to Authorised Officers) as set out in Appendix A.” (and more)
The minutes of this meeting aren’t on the record yet.
With it (1)
Planned
The national scheme comes into force
“The Planning Services Manager reminded Members that the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions would come into force on 31 October 2026 and would mean that applications of this type would then be determined by Officers.”
From Printed minutes, Planning Committee, 12 Aug 2026.
What the stages mean
- Proposed: Put forward in a paper or a consultation. Nothing decided yet, as far as the record shows.
- Decided: The minutes record a decision, or the paper states one was taken.
- Funded: The minutes record agreement to money for it.
- Started: Work began, or a rule came into force, on the date a paper states.
- Delivered: Finished, as a paper states.
- Noted: A meeting received it for information, or its minutes mention it. Nothing was decided.
- Planned: A date a council paper gives for a step not yet reached.
- Coming up: a meeting with papers published that hasn’t happened yet.
What happens next
From 31 October 2026, officers must decide householder applications, minor commercial and minor residential applications, and other consents such as prior approvals and the discharge of conditions (Schedule 1). These can't be referred to the Planning Committee. Applications made by the council, or in which it or one of its councillors or officers has an interest, go to the committee only when the chief planning officer and the committee's chair or vice chair agree.
Other applications (Schedule 2) are decided by officers unless the chief planning officer and the committee's chair or vice chair agree that one raises a significant planning matter, or an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area. If they don't agree, officers decide it.
Referral to the committee by a councillor's call-in, or by a number of objections, ends. The guidance says councils should keep a record of the applications considered for referral, report it to the committee regularly and publish it on their website.
How this page is built
The timeline is built by fixed rules from the councils' papers dated from 1 January 2025; no language model chooses what is in it. A meeting is one step: its papers on the story, what the main report recommended, and the resolution its minutes record for that item, matched the same way as on Coming up. A step is “Decided” only when the minutes record that the item was agreed or not agreed, or the minutes' checked summary says a decision was taken. The rules:
- A report to Cabinet, Full Council, Planning Committee whose title matches:
national scheme of delegation|scheme of delegation for planning|planning committee reform. Every paper filed under the same agenda item joins it. - Minutes of Planning Committee that use the words “National Scheme of Delegation”, quoting the first sentence that does.
- A consultation the councils list whose title matches
planning committee, on the closing date its own page gives. - The national scheme comes into force: shown when a council paper states the date (31 October 2026) in a sentence matching
into force|in force, quoted.
The rules live in config/stories.yaml. If we have got something wrong, it is corrected in place and logged on the about page.