A Lewisham councillor has warned residents could struggle to make their voices heard under proposals to scrap local planning meetings.
The proposal would remove the requirement for Local Meetings, which is unique to Lewisham and currently contained within the council’s Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). The meetings are non-statutory, meaning the council is not legally obliged to hold them. The proposal was discussed at the Sustainable Development Select Committee meeting on Thursday, 5 November 2026, and aims to “increase staffing time capacity” and “improve service capacity in officer time” as part of a broader effort to streamline the planning application process.
Removing the meetings is projected to save £35,000 a year through reduced administration and officer time spent organising and attending them. The saving is modest and does not involve staffing reductions.
Councillor Suzannah Clarke told the meeting that most ordinary residents already feel they do not have enough access to the planning system. “I always had a right to at least call a public meeting which at least made people feel that their voices were heard, because in a committee room their voices individually can’t be heard,” she said. “Only one person or two people can speak for five minutes, which is almost ludicrous when you’re talking about sometimes a huge impact on people’s lives.”
The councillor asked for feedback on what is proposed after the cut, saying it was something that concerned them as a councillor.
Steve Everson, Executive Director of Place, said Local Meetings came too late to make a difference. “Local meetings will tend to have been held just before a planning committee in quite a short window where, more often than not, the developer has spent all their money and done all their work and the opportunity to influence is minimised,” he said.
He explained that the move aims to shift community engagement earlier in the planning process, and that the council wants to move some of the costs it has had to bear onto developers. “The onus should be on the developer for early engagement and meaningful engagement with communities much earlier in the process,” he said.
The council is considering a proposal to update its SCI to reflect this refreshed approach, including seeking input from the community at the pre-application stage.
