Agenda item

Staffing – Transport Officers

A Member noted that a number of Transport Planning Officers had left the organisation recently and sought some assurance that the Department were still adequately resourced from this perspective. The Member added that she wanted to record her thanks to those who had left for all of their hard work. The Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director reported that the Department were devising a new way of working where work was now increasingly carried out across teams as opposed to in siloes and stated that he was confident that the resources were in place to cover this work. The Committee were informed that some members of the Strategic Transportation Team were also soon set to depart and that resources would be managed across the section to cover these roles given that there was an organisation-wide recruitment freeze in force at present. It was therefore not envisaged that there would be any significant impact on resources.

Virtual Reality (VR) Square Mile

A Member reported that he had attended a very interesting webinar on this subject in recent months which had also been attended by the Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director and had featured ‘the most advanced, fully interactive, virtual reality model ever created of a major City’, sponsored by the City of London. He therefore questioned whether any of this technology which had been developed so successfully could be used to help the Committee understand the context of some of the forthcoming applications. The Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director stated that he would be happy to present the technology to the Committee at a future training session. He added that VR technology required the use of a headset but that the aim was for this to become an established tool, not just for Members but also for the general public to better understand the impact of a proposal. Further work was also being undertaken to allow people to better understand and visualise the pedestrian flows and thermal comfort/wind impacts of developments.

Museum of London Progress

A Member questioned the progress made on the permission granted by this Committee in Summer 2020 noting that no decision notice had yet been issued. The Interim Chief Planning Officer and Development Director reported that his had not been issued as the Section 106 agreement had not yet been entered into as the Museum of London were yet to take an interest in the site which would then enable them to enter into the planning obligation and to the agreement. Negotiations on the lease to the Museum were continuing.

Governance Review pertaining to the Planning and Transportation Committee

A Member reported that recent discussions on the Planning Protocol at the Policy and Resources Committee had led to the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee undertaking to consider the Lord Lisvane recommendations pertaining to the Planning and Transportation Committee in early 2021 with any changes being put in place for the new civic year in April 2021.

A Member, also Deputy Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee, confirmed that this was the case and that he would be bringing forward the consideration of the Lord Lisvane recommendations around this Committee. He added that consultation dates for January 2021 had now been agreed and that Members would be notified of these later this week. Any recommendations arising from these sessions would be taken to the Resource Allocation Sub Committee, the Planning and Transportation Committee and, ultimately, the Court of Common Council to a timescale that envisaged the Corporation being able to implement any changes agreed by the beginning of the new municipal year.

The Chair added that he and the Deputy Chairman were very keen to see this work undertaken. He added, however, that this was not about a review of the Planning Protocol but a review of the Lisvane recommendations and stated that the Protocol had already been reviewed by this Committee and the Policy and Resources Committee. He noted that there may, however, be an overlap of issues in terms of the governance of this Committee.