THE chairman of the Borough of Poole planning committee is calling for more safeguards to be put in place to stop officers using delegated powers to give the green light to controversial planning applications.

It comes after Eddie Mitchell’s latest scheme for Sandbanks Pavilion was approved last month under delegated powers - without any discussion with councillors.

Planning committee chairman Peter Pawlowski said he only discovered the application had been approved by one of his own constituents.

“I fully expected the application to come to the planning committee just as the other Sandbanks Pavilion proposals have done,” he added.

“There was no consultation with members about whether to approve the application under delegated powers - which should only be used for minor issues.

“I’m not happy about how this has been handled and will be asking questions about why such a controversial scheme, on council land, was approved without any discussion with councillors.”

Cllr Pawlowski has organised a meeting of the Delegated Powers Working Party to discuss not just what happened with the Sandbanks Pavilion application but the entire delegated powers scheme.

“I will certainly be looking into this because it has highlighted a flaw in our system when a proposal of this magnitude is allowed to sneak through,” he added.

“And there needs to be a further safeguard in place to stop this from happening.”

Cllr Philip Eades said it was “unbelievable” that the scheme had been approved in this way.

He has requested permission to ask five urgent questions about the matter at Tuesday’s full council meeting.

Stephen Thorne, head of planning and regeneration at BoP, said: “Mr Mitchell has made a planning application for 16 executive beach huts on council land above the existing pavilion that affects land in ownership of the council.

"He served the necessary notices on the council and therefore the application is valid and was registered as such.

“In April the planning committee refused planning permission for alterations and first floor additions to the pavilion to form 44 beach huts, construction of beach arena, children's play areas, outside classroom and education area, multi use surface and erection of single storey detached ticket office.

“The planning system allows for re-submission of a planning proposal that aims to overcome any reason for refusal on a previous application. The previous scheme was objectionable on the grounds of the sport areas and traffic/car parking issues.

“This application proposed alterations and first floor additions to the pavilion to form 16 executive beach studios that, in principle, is similar to the previous application.

"The latest application is a reduction of numbers of beach huts being provided from 44 to 16 where the principle of beach huts was not deemed objectionable by the planning committee when they considered the first application.

“In the light of what was before the committee in April, the significant reduction in numbers of beach huts being provided by the current application and with no council reason why this application could not be authorised by officers, I made the decision that this did not have to be referred to committee as compared to the previous application it became of a minor nature.

"My judgement that this application could be made under delegated powers enabled the decision to be authorised in August. This rationale is available is on the council’s website.”