Report on planning in Wales calls for regional footprint of specialist legal teams

Those recommendations have come in a report by the Royal Town Planning Institute Cymru (RTPIC) on the parlous state of the planning profession in Wales, which also said the committees should share with councils expertise on compulsory purchase orders, and on drafting standard enforcement notices.

More than half of Wales’ 22 councils told RTPIC they needed more staff in legal services and in dealing with section 106 matters and compulsory purchase, while 8% bought these services from consultants.

RTPIC noted: “Across Wales, 54% of [councils] report a lack of legal capacity, with 8% outsourcing these services to consultants.”

The remainder reported sufficient capacity, but these were mostly rural authorities with less development and fewer complex S.106 agreements.

“The Welsh Government planning division identifies legal expertise as a widespread skills and capacity gap,” the report noted.

There were stark regional variations with the proportions saying they had sufficient legal staff for planning varying from 17% in North Wales to 30% in South East Wales, 75% in South West Wales and 100% in Mid Wales.

RTPIC recommended a regional ‘footprint’ for legal services to allow specialist legal planning teams to focus on this on a full-time basis. This would lead to “greater efficiency and consistency”.

Elsewhere, the survey found real terms net expenditure on local planning services decreased by 43% (£21m) between 2009-24.

Most councils said planning fees covered only a fraction of actual service delivery. equivalent to about 39% in 2024.

Although the number of planners employed had started to rise in recent years, there remained shortages and the Welsh Government’s planning division had reduced in size from 60 officers in 2015 to 33 in 2024.

“This has had a tangible impact on the planning division’s ability to provide timely and robust national policy updates or provide wider leadership for example by monitoring performance and driving improvement,” RTPIC said.

“It is only in recent months that steps have been taken to reverse some of these cuts with the welcome recruitment of much-needed planners.”

RTPIC found as of May 2025 there were 37 planning officer posts vacant, and 73% of councils had one or more vacancies

All those interviewed felt resource problems combined with expanding remits and stakeholder expectations meant their council lacked capacity to deliver planning ambitions or strategic goals, and were instead preoccupied by surviving/fire-fighting.

RTPIC said a Planning Improvement Service should be created to promote best practice and efficiencies, support peer review and performance monitoring and serve as a central knowledge hub for the profession.

It also raised concerns about the future of the profession in Wales, noting that 17% of planners - equivalent to 85 - could be lost through retirement in the next decade.

"Unless robust succession planning is in place, complemented by a strong pipeline of new planners, this loss of planning knowledge and leadership will have a significant impact on service delivery and planning outcomes,” the report said.

In the short-term,161 extra planners were needed, along with 15 specialist officers and five business support officers, “simply to address known vacancies”.

Mark Smulian

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