Mayor forced to break deadlock after Reform snub constitution update despite ‘legal and financial risk’ warning

Sandwell’s mayor was forced to break a deadlock after the council’s Reform administration refused to endorse new planning laws despite a warning it could lead to legal and financial costs.

Sandwell Council’s ruling Reform group, which took power in May, abstained from a vote at Tuesday’s full council meeting saying it did not support new planning rules and it was up to Labour opposition councillors to support government changes.

Labour councillors, who also abstained, accused Reform of “outsourcing” decision-making to the opposition.

Not approving the changes could have seen all planning decisions delegated to officers and open the authority to costly legal battles.

An agreement was finally reached after Reform mayor Cllr Margaret Sutton agreed to use her casting vote to approve the changes by two votes to one after 64 abstentions from Reform and Labour councillors.

“Councillors will know that I have always, since I was mayor, been impartial,” she said. “But in this case, I must use my casting vote to protect a council which has had a history of intervention, and I cannot morally allow this to drag us back to the past.

“I have had very clear legal advice, as you all have, on what the implications of what is before us this evening. So I cannot morally allow it to drag on.”

The council had been asked to approve changes to its constitution to reflect new government planning laws which come into effect at the end of the month.

In future, a planning application would only be referred to the planning committee for a decision if its chair and the council’s head of planning agree it would create “significant” issues. Councillors can no longer ‘call in’ applications to the committee.

Most ‘minor, small-scale and householder’ decisions – including developments of up to nine homes but also extensions – would be made solely by a council officer and cannot be sent to planning committees.

A new cross-party advisory group would also be created to offer advice but would not be able to delegate or make decisions.

The rules come into force on October 31 irrespective of whether the council adopted them as part of its constitution but rejecting the constitutional changes could have left many of the decisions open to challenge.

Sandwell Council’s outgoing monitoring officer Michael Jones warned councillors that not adopting the planning changes into the council’s constitution would make it “inconsistent and incompatible.”

“That, in turn, creates direct and immediate governance, procedural and legal risks directed towards this council,” he said. “Those risks may crystallise in the form of legal and financial challenges.”

Reform council leader Ray Nock told the meeting the planning changes would “remove the rights of all elected members to a small group.”

“I don’t think that’s right, my team don’t think that’s right,” he said. “We have invited the Labour opposition to have a go [seconding the decision] but they won’t even support their own government’s law.”

Labour opposition leader Cllr Paul Moore said: “This is a decision full council must take before the end of the month. If [Cllr Nock] is against the decision, which is what he said at committee [earlier in October] then bizarrely abstained with his colleagues, then vote against it tonight. Or you can vote in favour.

“Leadership is about taking responsibility, it means taking the difficult decisions and upholding standards. Staying silent on an issue like this is not leadership.

“The official opposition of this council will not allow you to outsource your inability to make a decision to us. You won the election in May, this is your decision to sort out, not ours”

Cllr Moore said the council’s Labour group would abstain until the “point Reform was able to make a decision, one way or the other.”

“If you can’t make a decision, then you need to step aside,” he added. “You need to step aside for someone else in your group that can provide the leadership this council needs.”

The new ‘planning and referral advisory group’ will be made up of the chair and vice chairs of the planning committee and three councillors reflecting the political makeup of the council. In this case, a Reform, a Labour and either a Green or independent councillor.

The group would have no decision-making powers, would not rule on planning applications nor decide whether the application should be referred to the council’s planning committee. The group would instead provide “non-binding advice” to the committee’s Reform chair Cllr Paul Snape.

Cllr Matt Lloyd (Reform – Tipton Green) said the new rules would “go down like a bag of sick” in Tipton.

Cllr Luke Davies (Labour – Smethwick) said: “What this does basically is allow somebody to look at [applications] in advance and advise whether a house should be built quicker and [Reform] are about to complain about no houses being built.

“Perhaps they ought to get their heads around the fact that when legislation comes down the track saying ‘here is a way that you can build houses quicker’, they shouldn’t basically scrap their entire planning plans, make them all illegal, including the article 4 direction.

“All of those will then be illegal, and anyone who is found against will simply take us to court, and you will remove the authority of planning to stop anything being done.

“That’s what you’re doing. Please actually find your spines.”

Deputy council leader Gary Dale: “At the end of the day you’ve got to decide. You’ve got to decide whether you want to defy your own government’s policy. It’s as simple as that.”

Cllr Davies replied: “Can the mayor remind the deputy leader that he’s the deputy leader please?”

Cllr Liam Preece (Labour – West Bromwich Central) said the previous Labour administration had to approve “plenty of things they did not agree with” during 14 years of Conservative government because “that was what a responsible administration does.”

“It just strikes me as an extremely strange scenario that the party opposite seems to feel that this is such an egregious attack on the very values of our nation that they are going to abstain,” he said.

“They’re going to take no view on the matter. Does that make sense? … I mean, if you’re against something, vote against it.

“The party opposite have already mentioned this council going into intervention a couple of years ago. They didn’t mention how it came out of intervention long before the last election, but never mind. Part of the reason why this council went into intervention was because of poor governance.

“The administration at the time was deemed to not be able to make a difficult decision. Does it ring any bells?

“We are not here, as the opposition, to bail out the democratically elected administration of this council.”

Sandwell Council’s governance and constitution review committee had been asked to endorse the planned constitutional changes at a meeting on October 6 ahead of a final decision to be made by full council this week.

Reform council leader Ray Nock, who chaired the meeting, abstained alongside fellow Reform councillors Michael Cooper, Jack Sabharwal and Tuli Zefi. Labour councillors Paul Moore and Liam Preece voted in favour.

By Christian Barnett | Local Democracy Reporting Service