PLANNING services at Dorset Council has improved to become one of the best and biggest in the country.

It should mean local residents and developers getting a better and faster service when they submit applications.

The department, believed to be the 7th busiest in the UK, is now exceeding national thresholds for dealing with planning requests, bringing in an income of around £4.5million a year in fees, although the amount does not cover the full cost of providing the service.

Dorset Council portfolio holder for planning, Cllr David Walsh, says the council team is also one of the busiest for dealing with Neighbourhood Plans, where communities set out what sort of developments they would like to see in their area, with thirteen completed and seven in preparation, a process which usually takes around two years to complete.

Cllr Walsh says despite the successes the planning team continues to struggle to recruit, faced with a national shortage of qualified planning officers.

He is warning that new rules which reduce the time applications are expected to be dealt with, from 26 to 16 weeks, could be ‘challenging’ and may result in the department losing out on fees in the long run.

The senior council officer overseeing the planning department, Matthew Piles, has told councillors that whether or not his team can meet the new, tighter, target will largely depend on the quality of applications coming in, coupled with the volume.

He said there was also a discussion to be had about what level of staffing would be needed in the council’s conservation and planning enforcement teams where there are currently vacancies.

Weymouth Green councillor Brian Heatley told a committee that the new target might force Dorset Council into having to hold more frequent planning committees.

Cllr David Tooke (Lib Dem, Alderholt) told the same meeting that the new targets were a clear message from the Government that it wanted to see more applications passed and for more building projects to be completed at a faster rate.