Andover planning: councillor call-in ends on 31 October

On 31 October the main routes that put an Andover planning application in front of councillors close by law. From that date a ward councillor can no longer require a case to be heard in public, and an application cannot reach a committee simply because a set number of people objected to it.

The change comes from the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, made on 15 July and signed by the housing minister Matthew Pennycook. They apply to every local planning authority in England, including Test Valley Borough Council.

Test Valley’s Northern Area Planning Committee, the one that decides Andover applications, meets on Thursday 17 September at 5.30pm at Beech Hurst on Weyhill Road. Item 10 on its agenda asks members to approve the council’s Scheme of Officer Delegations. The report in front of them says there is nothing new in it. In its own words: “There were no further amendments to present to Annual Council 2026 for consideration.”

What actually changes

The regulations sort planning applications into two schedules.

Schedule 1 applications must be decided by an officer. There is no discretion and no exception, unless the council itself has an interest. The list includes:

• householder applications
• minor commercial applications
• minor residential applications, meaning one to nine homes on a site smaller than 0.5 hectares
• applications for permission in principle
• certificates of lawful use or development
• prior approval under permitted development rights
• discharge of planning conditions
• non-material amendments to a permission
• reserved matters on any outline permission below 500 homes or 50,000 square metres

Schedule 2 applications go to an officer by default. That covers everything larger, plus listed building consent, advertisement consent and tree preservation order applications. One of these reaches a committee only if two named people, a nominated member and a nominated officer, both agree that it raises “one or more issues of economic, social or environmental significance to the local area” or “one or more significant planning matters”.

The government’s statutory guidance, published on 1 June, is blunt about what that ends. Paragraph 9 says current constitutional practices, “such as the power for ward councillors to require cases to be called in for committee consideration or having trigger points for referral to committee if a certain number of objections is reached, will not be possible”.

It also says the presumption is delegation, and that referral should happen “only exceptionally”.

Two of Thursday’s three applications would be officer decisions

The agenda for 17 September is the clearest illustration of what this means in Andover, because all three of its applications arrived at committee through routes that are closing.

Land adjacent to 11 Ox Drove, Picket Piece (26/01409/FULLN) is a proposal for four houses. Andover Town Council objected on seven grounds, including overdevelopment, parking and the absence of social housing, and a resident of 7B Ox Drove objected as well. Officers recommend permission. Four homes is a minor residential application if the site is under half a hectare, and the report does not state the site area.

Land adjacent to Hillside Cottages, Cocum Road, Barton Stacey (26/01458/PIPN) is an application for permission in principle for four to six homes, about eight miles east of Andover. Nine people wrote in to object, on flood risk, road safety, the electricity supply and the fact that the site was never in the draft Local Plan. Barton Stacey Parish Council supported it with conditions. Permission in principle sits in Schedule 1, so after 31 October this one could not go to a committee at all, whatever the objections said.

Both reports give the same reason for the case being heard in public: the proposal is contrary to the development plan, adverse third party representations were received, and officers recommend approval. That is Test Valley’s own local rule, not a national one.

The third item, the Vigo Park splash pad and bowls pavilion, is different. Test Valley is the applicant, so it is an “own-interest application” under regulation 6. Those can still be referred, but only if the nominated member and nominated officer agree to it. Our report on that scheme is here.

What Test Valley has done about it

Very little that is on the public record. The scheme going to Thursday’s committee still carries all five local routes, including the ward member call-in and the 72 hour nutrient neutrality referral, and its annex is stamped “Last updated: May 2026”.

Full Council is the body that amends the constitution. It next meets on Wednesday 14 October, and then not again until 9 December. That makes 14 October the last scheduled opportunity to change the constitution before the regulations take effect.

The guidance warns what happens if a council does not. Paragraph 4 says that where an authority does not comply and its committee decides an application that must be delegated, those decisions “may be subject to judicial review by anyone aggrieved by the decision” and that this “may lead to the quashing of the decision”. Neither the regulations nor the guidance says what should happen to applications already queued for a committee on 31 October.

One thing Test Valley does not have to change is the size of its committees. Regulation 7 caps a committee that determines applications at 13 members. Both the Northern Area Planning Committee and its Romsey counterpart, the Southern Area Planning Committee, have exactly 13.

The council is not blind to the wider pressure. The Corporate Risk Register going to its Audit Committee on 21 September scores “inability to deliver government’s changes to planning system and increased housing requirements” as very high likelihood and critical impact, unchanged since March. Only one other risk on the whole register is rated that severely, and that is local government reorganisation.

What it means for you

If you object to a development near you, the practical advice changes on 31 October.

• The publicity period becomes the moment that counts. Your written comments still go on the file and officers still have to take them into account. What stops working is asking your ward councillor to get the case heard in public.
• The number of objectors stops being a lever. A threshold of objections will no longer trigger a committee hearing anywhere in England.
• Two people become the gateway for anything in Schedule 2. The guidance says the nominated officer should be the chief planning officer or equivalent, and the nominated member should be the chair of the planning committee. Test Valley has not published who its nominees will be. The Northern Area Planning Committee is chaired by Councillor Jan Budzynski.
• There is a new paper trail to ask for. Paragraph 34 of the guidance says councils should keep a record of every case the two nominees considered for referral, the outcome and their reasons, report it to the planning committee regularly and publish it on their website.
• Speaking rights are unaffected where a committee still sits. Public participation remains item 2 on the Northern Area Planning Committee agenda.

Applications for the Andover area are listed on our Andover planning news page, and the council’s own register is at view-applications.testvalley.gov.uk.

Sources

• The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/854, for the 31 October commencement, the 15 July making date, the signature, regulations 4 to 7 and the contents of Schedules 1 and 2.
• Planning Committees and the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions: guidance for local planning authorities in England, published 1 June 2026, for paragraphs 4, 9, 10, 22 and 34.
• Test Valley Borough Council, Northern Area Planning Committee agenda, 17 September 2026, for the venue, the time, the three applications and item 10.
• Scheme of Delegations, report to Northern Area Planning Committee, 17 September 2026, for the recommendation and paragraph 4.1.
• Scheme of Officer Delegations, Part 3 of the constitution, annex to that report, for the delegation to the Director of Planning and Development, its exceptions (a) to (d) and paragraph (2), and the May 2026 stamp.
• Officer report, 26/01409/FULLN, land adjacent 11 Ox Drove, Picket Piece, for the four dwellings, the reason for committee, Andover Town Council’s objection and the resident objection.
• Officer report, 26/01458/PIPN, land adjacent Hillside Cottages, Cocum Road, Barton Stacey, for the permission in principle for four to six dwellings, the reason for committee, the nine objections and the parish council’s support.
• Test Valley Borough Council, Corporate Risk Register summary dashboard, Audit Committee, 21 September 2026, for risk C7, its score in March and September 2026 and the heat map.
• Northern Area Planning Committee membership and Southern Area Planning Committee membership, for the 13 members on each and the chair.
• Test Valley Borough Council, meetings of the Council, for the 14 October and 9 December 2026 dates.