West Berkshire Council has agreed to replace three existing panels with one West Berkshire planning committee, as new national rules change how planning applications are decided in England. Councillors backed the switch on 15th October 2026, and the council confirmed it publicly the following morning.
The new arrangements are due to start on 31st October, when the national scheme of delegation comes into force. West Berkshire’s replacement committee will have 11 councillors and will normally meet once a month. The change is to the machinery for deciding applications, rather than an adoption of new local planning policies or a grant of permission for any particular development.
For householders, developers and neighbours, the practical question will increasingly be whether an application is one that officers must decide or one that can exceptionally go before elected members. Residents can still make planning representations, but large numbers of objections will not, by themselves, secure a committee hearing. My advice is to explain the actual planning impact of a proposal clearly, rather than simply call for a committee vote.
West Berkshire planning committee to replace three panels
The council’s announcement on 16th October says the merger was agreed following the Full Council meeting the previous evening. Its three existing committees will be replaced by one body covering the district, instead of maintaining separate panels for different areas.
Eleven members will sit on the new planning committee, which the council expects to meet monthly in the normal course of business. The council has not suggested that every application previously considered by a local panel will automatically transfer to the new body. Some types of application will now be reserved for officer decision by law.
West Berkshire says it will put in place a local process to identify applications that might qualify for referral. Ward councillors will still be able to flag applications of potential significance. Flagging one is not the same as exercising an unconditional right to have it decided in public by councillors.
These are local implementation decisions against the background of national legislation. The choice to consolidate three committees into one is West Berkshire’s own structural response; the more restrictive rules about which applications may reach a committee come from legislation applying across England.
What the national scheme actually requires
The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/854, were made on 15th July and take effect on 31st October 2026. They create two broad categories of application, subject to important qualifications. This law applies to England, not the separate Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish planning systems.
Schedule 1 covers applications which generally must be determined by officers. Familiar examples include householder schemes, minor commercial applications and qualifying housing schemes of one to nine dwellings on sites smaller than half a hectare. Prior approvals, certificates of lawfulness and various technical consents also fall into the mandatory category. The precise statutory definitions matter, particularly where related listed building matters or the council’s own interests alter the applicable route.
Schedule 2 contains applications that may be referred to a planning committee but are ordinarily determined by officers. For a referral, the nominated officer and nominated committee member must agree that the application raises a significant planning matter or an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area. A major scheme is not automatically a committee case merely because of its size.
The Government’s statutory guidance explains how that test should operate and says committee referral ought to be exceptional. Where the nominated officer and member cannot agree, the application is determined by officers. Council-related own-interest applications have specific arrangements of their own, intended to allow appropriate public scrutiny where agreed.
What changes for residents and applicants?
West Berkshire’s old committee referral arrangements will no longer be the starting point for determining who makes a planning decision. Under the national framework, local rules cannot turn a mandatory officer decision into a committee case simply because enough people sign an objection or a ward member requests a hearing.
That does not mean neighbours have lost the right to comment on planning applications. Councillor Denise Gaines, the council’s Executive Member for Planning and Housing, said that “residents will still be able to comment on planning applications” and emphasised that relevant planning issues would continue to be considered. The important distinction is between influencing the planning merits of a proposal and choosing the identity of the decision-maker.
It follows that a careful objection identifying overlooking, highway safety, design, drainage or a conflict with adopted policy is more useful than simply demanding a public meeting. Officers must consider the development plan and relevant material considerations whether or not an application goes before a planning committee.
Applicants should likewise avoid treating officer determination as a guarantee of approval or of a quicker decision. Officers remain obliged to assess the scheme lawfully; they can refuse unacceptable proposals, seek amendments where appropriate and impose conditions on permissions. Delegation changes who exercises the authority’s decision-making power, not the statutory presumption in favour of the development plan.
Can a significant application still go before councillors?
Yes. The regulations deliberately preserve a route for some significant cases, although it is more controlled than previous local committee call-in procedures. A proposal involving a substantial planning conflict, a sensitive location or major consequences for local communities may justify consideration against the gateway test. The nominated officer and member must both agree to referral.
The new West Berkshire planning committee will therefore still have a role in substantial, contentious or unusual proposals, provided they fall within the types of application capable of referral and satisfy the test. No particular scheme can be assumed to qualify without checking its application type and the reasons for referral.
National guidance also requires authorities to record the referral cases considered, the outcome and the reasons, and to make that information available online. That transparency will matter to residents who want to understand why one development reached councillors while another stayed with officers.
If you’re following a larger application, I’d check the planning register and the council’s emerging referral arrangements rather than rely on historic committee boundaries. The council says further information about how the new arrangements operate will be made available on its website.
What happens on 31st October?
The operative date is fixed by the national regulations. From 31st October, West Berkshire must follow the new delegation framework when determining applications, including those already in the system but not yet decided. An application lodged before that date does not acquire a permanent right to go to committee under the old rules.
The new planning committee is expected to meet monthly, but the council’s announcement does not identify the date of its first meeting or set out a full public speaking protocol. Those details should be checked against subsequent council papers rather than assumed.
There is a wider lesson for authorities still adjusting their constitutions. As previously reported by Planning Geek in Derbyshire and Woking, councils have approached the national changes through differing local governance debates. But the mandatory statutory categories and 31st October commencement date do not depend on whether local politicians welcome the reform.
For West Berkshire, the immediate news is a confirmed local merger of three committees into one. The practical follow-up is to see the final referral process, the meeting calendar and how consistently the new gateway is operated once the law takes effect. Those are matters of implementation, not fresh permissions or changes to the development plan.
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