From 31 October most Hounslow planning applications will be decided by officers, and the Planning Committee shrinks from 15 to 13. Councillors vote on 21 October.
Most planning applications in Hounslow will be decided by council officers from 31 October, under a national scheme that takes the choice away from councillors. Hounslow’s Planning Committee will also shrink from 15 members to 13.
That is the business of the special council meeting called for Wednesday 21 October. Its agenda was published this week.
Why the council has to act now
The change comes from the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. The detail is in the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, made on 15 July. They come into force on 31 October 2026.
The council’s report says adopting the changes “is a legal requirement”. It quotes the government’s statutory guidance on what happens to councils that miss the date:
“where local planning authorities do not comply with the Regulations from the date they come into force (31 October 2026) and their planning committees make decisions on applications which must be delegated to officers, those decisions may be subject to judicial review… This may lead to the quashing of the decision”.
The report says keeping the existing arrangements “is not a legally viable option”.
What changes
The regulations sort applications into two lists.
Schedule 1: decided by officers, with no route to committee. These include:
- householder applications, such as extensions and loft conversions
- minor residential schemes of one to nine homes on a site under half a hectare
- minor commercial applications
- certificates of lawful development
- prior approvals under permitted development rights
- reserved matters, except on outline permissions of 500 or more homes
Schedule 2: decided by officers unless referred to committee. These include:
- larger applications that are not householder or minor schemes
- listed building consent
- consent to work on a tree covered by a preservation order
- advertisement consent
- retrospective applications for work already carried out
A Schedule 2 case goes to the Planning Committee only if two people agree it should. Hounslow proposes that they are the Chair of the Planning Committee and the Director of Planning and Buildings. Under regulation 5, they can refer it if it raises “issues of economic, social or environmental significance to the local area” or “significant planning matters”.
Applications made by the council itself, or by a councillor or officer, follow a similar route. The same two people decide whether they go to committee.
The committee itself must have no more than 13 members, under regulation 7. Hounslow’s has 15. Who loses the two seats is in a separate report on appointments, which the agenda says “is to follow”.
Who sits on the committee now
The Planning Committee’s membership page lists 15 councillors:
| Party | Members |
|---|---|
| Labour (including Labour and Co-operative) | 8 |
| Conservative | 4 |
| Reform UK | 2 |
| Green | 1 |
The Chair is Councillor Pritam Grewal (Labour, Hounslow Central) and the Vice-Chair is Councillor Craig Owen (Labour, Brentford West). Two Chiswick councillors sit on it: Michael Denniss (Conservative, Chiswick Homefields) and Vickram Grewal (Conservative, Chiswick Gunnersbury).
Seats on committees have to follow the political balance of the full council. Labour now holds 31 of the 62 seats, one short of a majority, so the new allocation will be watched closely.
How it got here
The council’s Audit and Governance Committee considered the planning changes on 8 September. Its record shows:
- the new terms of reference were recommended unanimously
- naming the Planning Committee Chair as the “nominated member” passed four votes to none, with two abstentions
The item then went on the agenda for the full council meeting of 15 September. The council has not yet published minutes of that meeting. The planning changes are now back before councillors at the 21 October special meeting, ten days before the deadline.
The Planning Committee has met three times since the May elections, on 11 June, 6 August and 3 September. Its meetings on 25 June, 9 July and 1 October were cancelled. The next is on 5 November, the first under the new rules.
What it means for you
- If you are objecting to a neighbour’s extension or a small housing scheme, it will be decided by an officer. Your written objection still counts. There will be no committee meeting to speak at.
- If you are objecting to a larger scheme, ask your ward councillors to press the Chair and the Director to refer it. Under the new rules a ward councillor cannot send it to committee on their own.
- Chiswick has many listed buildings. Listed building consent is in Schedule 2, so those cases can still go to committee if both people agree.
- Speaking rights at committee stay the same. An objector and the applicant can each speak for up to five minutes. You must tell the committee administrator by noon on the Friday of the week before the meeting, according to the proposed terms of reference.
- One safeguard is kept. If officers recommend refusal but the committee is minded to approve, the decision is deferred to the next meeting so objectors can attend.
Chiswick’s most contested recent case shows what is at stake. The High Court quashed the permission for 132 flats at 1 Burlington Lane in September. That permission had been granted by the committee on a 13 to 1 vote. A scheme of that size is a Schedule 2 application. If it comes back for a new decision after 31 October, it will be decided by an officer unless the Chair and the Director agree to send it to committee.
The government must review the scheme by 31 October 2028.
The special meeting is at 7.30pm on Wednesday 21 October in the Council Chamber at Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, TW3 3EB. It is open to the public. Current applications can be searched on the council’s planning register, and our Chiswick planning page tracks the big local schemes.
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