Planning Duty Officer

Due to the high volumes of work, meetings with Planning Officers are generally by appointment only. An Officer will not be able to see you unless an appointment to do so is made directly with the Officer, in advance.

To enable us to answer your general planning queries, The Planning Service operates a Duty Officer system between the hours of 11.00am and 1.00pm Monday to Friday. During this period an appropriate officer from one of the teams will be available to answer general planning enquiries whether they are received by telephone or visitors to the office. Should you subsequently wish to speak to a specific Planning Officer regarding an application or query that you have, an appointment will need to be made.

The Duty Officer is a useful first point of contact and will for example;

Advise on matters of procedure and process
Provide, where possible, help with the interpretation of plans and drawings
Give general advice on who to contact and how best to seek pre-application advice
Answer general policy questions
Comment on development potential

The Duty Officer is unable to answer questions about specific applications, but will take a message and pass this on to the relevant case officer. If you would like to know about the progression of your planning application please contact the planning case officer or consult our website where key details regarding timescales, consultations and decisions can be found.

Most site specific enquiries can not be addressed without the benefit of thorough research, consultation and a site visit. The Duty Officer is therefore unable to deal with such enquiries but will advise on how best to proceed.

The Duty Officer system is intended to provide a better service to our customers. Working on a rota basis the Duty Officer enables other planning officers to concentrate on dealing with your applications, appeals, correspondence and other related matters and it is therefore a more effective and efficient use of their time. At the same time it ensures that there is always an appropriate officer available to deal with your initial enquiry.

Other staff are available to advise on more detailed planning policy issues and the completion of application forms.