Somerset Council cannot afford planning enforcement improvements

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 1 Nov, 06:20 · Archive

Somerset Council cannot afford £475,000 to improve its planning enforcement service amid a projected £40m budget gap.

Somerset Council has no money available to improve its planning enforcement team as its projected budget gap swells to £40m for next year. The council has struggled to adequately hold developers and landowners to account through the planning enforcement process, admitting in January that it was relying on agency staff from a district council in Staffordshire to carry out much of this work.

A review revealed that the average number of cases allocated to each enforcement officer has risen from 155 in November 2025 to 169 in May 2026, described as an 'unsustainable' nine per cent increase. The review proposed investing an additional £475,000 to restructure and improve the service, including £270,000 to hire six additional enforcement officers, £105,000 in one-off agency support to tackle the backlog of cases, and £100,000 for additional legal services.

However, officers have now revealed there is no scope for investing further money into the enforcement team until the council can get its wider spending under control. The council has introduced a triage service which has seen around 85 per cent of initial enquiries 'shut down without further investigation', with town and parish councils being encouraged to handle lower-level matters before escalating to the enforcement team.

How it is being reported

• No money to improve Somerset enforcement service as budget gap hits £29mSomerset Council cannot afford to spend £475,000 on hiring additional enforcement staff to clear a huge backlog of potential planning breachesSomerset County Gazette · 1 Nov, 05:00
• No money to improve Somerset enforcement service as budget gap hits £29mSomerset Council cannot afford to spend £475,000 on hiring additional enforcement staff to clear a huge backlog of potential planning breachesBridgwater Mercury · 1 Nov, 05:00

In this story: Somerset Council · Conservative · Liberal Democrats · Staffordshire · Somerset

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