Warwick District Council is at risk of losing control of decisions on large planning applications having had too many permissions granted on appeal.

The national government measures performance by looking at how many major applications are rejected by councils but later granted by the Planning Inspectorate against the number of big applications it gets in.

If that proportion exceeds 10 per cent across a two-year period then councils can be placed into special measures, allowing developers to bypass the council and go straight to the Bristol-based national inspectorate for permission for bigger developments. It would not apply to smaller developments or householder applications.

Development manager Gary Fisher this week told Warwick District Council's planning committee that six of the major applications rejected by the council between April 2023 and March 2025 had been allowed with the district adjudicating on 55 big cases during that time, resulting in a ratio of 10.9 per cent. 

Mr Fisher went on detail how councils are then written to and asked to respond with reasons why they should not be placed into special measures, a piece of work he is leading on for WDC and that needs to be in by Friday (April 17).

"We feel optimistic that we have a very strong case to not be placed in special measures," he said.

"You can rest assured that we are putting forward the strongest case (possible), as you expect us to."

Mr Fisher also raised concern that 45 per cent of rejected applications of all sizes over the past year – 25 out of 56 – had been allowed on appeal, a figure that is "a little bit higher than we as officers would like" and "a bit unusual" but he added: "I'd be more concerned if that presented itself as a long-term scenario."

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Cllr Jan Matecki, who attended Tuesday's meeting as a substitute, said he had noticed a "high percentage were being upheld" and planned to ask portfolio holder Cllr Chris King for a closer look.

"Questions need to be asked why the committee is going against officer recommendations," he said.

"I am the first one to say that officers don't always get it right, I quite often challenge officers on this, but to have so many? We need to really look at why.

"Is it a perception? Is it that we are not applying standards correctly? A deep dive needs to happen to understand what is going wrong, particularly when it is against officer recommendations and the appeal is won."

Mr Fisher replied: "This is something that we are keeping under review as officers but absolutely, if you would like to raise that, that gives us the opportunity to look into it and provide a response in a bit more detail."

On the major applications, Mr Fisher added: "The reality is that if it was one less decision, we would be under the threshold. You're talking about the difference of one case and we would all hope that common sense would prevail in that.

"Sometimes we see trends in decisions made by the Planning Inspectorate that feel slightly unexpected to us, so it is important to monitor that as well. We make our very best endeavours to get it right all of the time but we have to acknowledge that doesn't (turn out to be the case) for anybody."