From 31 October, Buckinghamshire councillors and parish councils lose the right to call planning applications in to committee. Bierton shows what it changes.

Councillors and parish councils in Buckinghamshire are about to lose the power to force a planning application in front of a committee.

Full Council meets at 4pm on Wednesday 16 September in The Oculus on Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, and is asked to approve the constitution changes that do it. They take effect on 31 October 2026. (Buckinghamshire Council, report to Council, 16 September 2026)

This is not a local decision. The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, SI 2026 No. 854, create a national scheme of delegation that every planning authority in England must follow. (legislation.gov.uk) The council’s own report puts it plainly: from 31 October, authorities “will no longer have full discretion to determine locally which planning applications are decided by planning committees and which are delegated to officers”.

The change the council has written into its constitution is short and absolute:

“There is no right for a member or parish/town council to request, or require, the calling-in of an application to committee.”

What officers will always decide

The regulations split applications into two schedules.

Schedule 1 must be decided by a planning officer, in every case. No committee, no exceptions, unless the council itself has an interest in the application. Schedule 1 covers:

  • householder applications, meaning extensions, loft conversions and work in the garden
  • minor residential development
  • minor commercial development
  • non-material amendments to an existing permission
  • prior approval applications under permitted development rights
  • certificates of lawfulness, existing and proposed
  • reserved matters on an outline permission, unless the outline was a large one
  • biodiversity gain plans

There is a wrinkle worth knowing if you live next to a small site. The council’s covering report describes Schedule 1 residential as “up to 10 dwellings”. The definition written into the constitution is tighter: at least one but not more than nine dwellings, on a site smaller than 0.5 hectares.

Schedule 2 is everything else, including listed building consent, advertisement consent, work to protected trees, and any housing scheme of ten homes or more. These are still presumed to be decided by officers. A committee only gets them if they clear a two-part test.

The Gateway test, and who holds the key

A Schedule 2 application can be referred to committee only where it raises, in the constitution’s words:

  • “one or more issues of economic, social or environmental significance to the local area”; or
  • “one or more significant planning matters having regard to the development plan and any other material considerations”

That is the Gateway test. Clearing it is not enough on its own. The referral also needs the joint agreement of two named people:

  • the Nominated Member, which the council proposes should be the chairman of the relevant planning committee, with the vice-chairman as first substitute
  • the Nominated Officer, the corporate director or director with responsibility for planning

If those two cannot agree, the application is decided by officers. Objections that ask for a committee hearing become, in the constitution’s wording, “advisory only”.

The council also notes that it is not obliged to look at every Schedule 2 application for possible referral. It may run a triage system instead, and would have to update the constitution again to say how.

How a planning application will be decided in Buckinghamshire from 31 October 2026 A decision chart. A planning application is sorted into Schedule 1 or Schedule 2. Schedule 1 covers householder applications, minor residential of not more than nine dwellings on a site under 0.5 hectares, minor commercial, non-material amendments, prior approvals, certificates of lawfulness and most reserved matters, and must always be decided by a planning officer. Schedule 2 covers everything else, including listed building consent, advertisement consent, protected trees and housing of ten homes or more. A Schedule 2 application goes to committee only if it passes the Gateway test, meaning it raises an issue of economic, social or environmental significance to the local area or a significant planning matter, and only if the Nominated Member, the committee chairman, and the Nominated Officer, the director of planning, both agree. If they do not agree, an officer decides. Councillors and parish councils have no right to call an application in. Who decides your neighbour's planning application from 31 October Buckinghamshire Council's constitution as proposed to Full Council on 16 September 2026 Planning application Schedule 1 Householder, 1 to 9 dwellings under 0.5ha, minor commercial, Schedule 2 Everything else: listed buildings, adverts, protected trees, prior approvals, lawfulness certificates, most reserved matters 10 homes or more, larger commercial schemes Officer decides. Always. Never eligible for committee Gateway test Significance to the local area, or a significant planning matter? Do both agree? Nominated Member (committee chairman) and Nominated Officer (director of planning) no Officer decides yes Planning committee decides Source: Buckinghamshire Council, Appendix 1 to the Constitution Changes report, 16 September 2026. Councillors and parish councils have no right of call-in. Graphic by The Aylesbury Times
The left-hand branch is the one most householders will meet. There is no route from it to a committee.

What it would have meant for Bierton

Buckinghamshire’s most contested recent application shows the size of the change.

Up to 36 homes on a field off Barnett Way in Bierton drew 188 objections and one letter of support. Bierton Parish Council objected twice and asked for the application to be called in to committee if officers were minded to approve it. Officers were, and it went to the Central and North Buckinghamshire Area Planning Committee on 9 September, where it was the only item on the agenda. (our report, 5 September)

Thirty-six homes is a Schedule 2 application, so it would still be eligible for a committee after 31 October. What disappears is the mechanism that got it there. The parish council’s call-in would carry no weight of its own. Instead the committee chairman and the planning director would have to agree, between them, that the scheme cleared the Gateway test.

As at Friday 12 September the council’s planning register still recorded the Bierton application as “awaiting decision”, and no draft minutes from the 9 September meeting had been published.

The other things that change on 31 October

Buried in the tracked changes are three practical points.

  • Speaking rights are rewritten. At present a councillor who called an application in has an automatic right to speak at committee. That clause goes, because the call-in that triggered it goes. Objectors, supporters, parish councils, councillors and the applicant can still register to speak.
  • A Schedule 1 application can never reach committee. The constitution says so directly: “A schedule 1 matter will never be eligible for referral to committee.”
  • The Strategic Sites Committee keeps the biggest schemes. Housing of roughly 400 homes or more, and employment or retail of roughly 10,000 square metres or two hectares or more, still go there, again on referral rather than call-in.

The council says the amendments are limited to what the law requires. Members were briefed on 7 September at the Members’ Planning Forum, and town and parish councils were told on 8 September.

What it means for you

  • Commenting on applications still matters, and matters more. Officers must take material planning objections into account whoever decides the application. What you lose is the ability to get a councillor or your parish council to force a public hearing.
  • If you want a committee hearing, say why in planning terms. After 31 October the test is significance to the local area, or a significant planning matter against the development plan. A comment that makes that case is the only kind that can influence a referral.
  • Small schemes next door are now settled by officers, full stop. An extension, a prior approval, a nine-home site under half a hectare: none of those can go to committee.
  • The vote is public. Full Council on 16 September is webcast, and the agenda and both papers are on the council’s website.

You can search and comment on applications on the Buckinghamshire Council planning register, and we track local decisions on our Aylesbury planning news page.

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