THE planning procedure at Stratford District Council is back on track, just two years after it was named in

an industry magazine as the slowest English council at determining planning applications.

The planning service has delivered its best ever performance results over the 2013/2014 financial year, exceeding national performance targets.

The council had previously been mentioned in an article in Planning magazine for being the slowest English council as far as planning decisions were concerned, and might have faced Government sanctions if it had failed to reach the minimum level of performance required.

However it managed to process major planning applications more than 15 per cent faster than the national target required over the past year.

Robert Weeks, head of planning at Stratford District Council, said: “Not only is this result a first for Stratford District Council, it is all the more significant because the volume of applications are currently running at an all-time high and last year this exceeded 3,000 applications. This success for the district council has also been included as a case study for other councils to learn from at this year’s Local Government Association (LGA) conference in July.”