County planners gear up to tackle increasing minerals workloads

A county council is to expand its planning team to deal with an anticipated increase in demand for minerals.

Warwickshire County Council said it expects minerals activity to increase as the economy improves, which will place more demand on local reserves.

Business manager and planning manager Pam Neal told Planning: “We are expecting more demand and are to take a new minerals local plan document to consultation in a few months. 

“The current one is old and we want to take it forward to make it comply with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and ensure we have a land bank for mineral reserves.”

The local authority hopes to recruit a new senior planning officer for its planning and development team in communities group to help it take on the increasing workloads.

Neal said the postholder would help develop the minerals local plan as well as provide strategic policy advice for spatial planning and monitoring.

“This is a controversial area: in some instances we are looking at fairly long-term extraction, with associated lorry movements and noise, so it can be hard to strike a balance that pleases all.”

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