From 31 October, objection numbers and ward councillor requests can no longer send a Westminster planning application to committee. Councillors vote Wednesday.

The three routes Westminster residents have used for years to drag a planning application in front of councillors are being closed.

Full Council meets on Wednesday to change the constitution so the council can run the government’s new National Scheme of Delegation from 31 October. Buried in the papers is a new Planning Committee Referral Protocol, and it states plainly what will stop working.

From 31 October, none of the following will, on its own, get an application to a planning sub-committee:

  • the number of objections received
  • a request from a ward councillor
  • a request from an amenity society, neighbourhood forum or other stakeholder
  • disagreement with the officer’s recommendation

Councillor call-in powers go entirely. The protocol says “member call-in powers do not apply”.

Why it is happening

This is not a Westminster decision. The Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026 were made on 15 July and come into force on 31 October. Every council in England is in the same position.

The council’s report is blunt about the deadline. Planning decisions taken on or after 31 October that do not follow the Regulations “would be open to challenge and could be considered by the courts to have been unlawfully taken”.

The government’s stated aim is to keep committees on applications of strategic importance and leave routine and technical cases to officers.

The two schedules

The Regulations split applications into two groups.

Schedule 1 must be decided by officers. There is no route to committee at all. It covers:

  • householder applications
  • minor residential and minor commercial schemes, meaning one to nine dwellings on a site under 0.5 hectares
  • discharge of conditions
  • lawful development certificates
  • non-material amendments
  • prior approval applications
  • permission in principle
  • biodiversity gain plans

Schedule 2 is presumed delegated but can be referred. It covers everything not in Schedule 1, plus listed building consent, advertisement consent, works to trees under a Tree Preservation Order and retrospective applications under section 73A.

A Schedule 2 case only reaches committee if two people agree it should, and the application meets at least one of two statutory tests: that it raises an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area, or a significant planning matter under the development plan.

Diagram of Westminster planning decision routes from 31 October 2026: Schedule 1 applications such as householder extensions and schemes of one to nine dwellings are decided by officers with no route to committee; Schedule 2 applications including listed building and advertisement consent are delegated unless referred through a gateway meeting of the Director of Town Planning and Building Control and the Chair of Planning; the number of objections, ward councillor requests, amenity society requests and disagreement with the officer are no longer triggers
Graphic by The Westminster Post

Two people now hold the gate

Those two people are named in the protocol.

  • Nominated Officer: the Director of Town Planning and Building Control. Substitutes are Planning Team Leaders and the Head of Design, Conservation and Sustainability.
  • Nominated Member: the Chair of Planning. Substitutes are the Vice-Chair and the other Planning Committee Chairs.

They meet fortnightly at what the council calls a Gateway Meeting. All major applications go to that meeting automatically. Other Schedule 2 cases only get there if officers triage them in first, and the protocol is explicit that not all Schedule 2 applications will be looked at.

If the officer and the member cannot agree, the application does not go to committee. Under the Regulations it is decided by the officer under delegated powers.

The protocol also lists what Westminster thinks is likely to count as significant: city-wide effects, harm to grade I and II* listed buildings, scheduled monuments or the World Heritage Site, the loss of a use that matters to the local community, substantial conflict with the development plan, and untested planning issues.

The listed building point matters here

Westminster has more listed buildings than almost anywhere in the country, and this is where the change bites hardest.

The protocol says listed building consent applications, tree applications and advertisement consents with no linked Schedule 2 planning permission will “normally be determined under delegated powers”. Applications to vary or discharge conditions on a listed building consent “will not be referred to committee” at all.

There is one exception that runs the other way. Applications made by the council itself, or by one of its officers or councillors, or in which any of them has an interest, can be sent to committee whether they sit in Schedule 1 or Schedule 2. Those are not subject to the gateway tests. Where the nominated officer or nominated member has a personal interest, they step out of the meeting.

What the council is promising in return

The council says it will publish a record of every case the two nominated people consider. The tracker is to show which of the two statutory tests was engaged, whether the case went to committee, the reason and the date.

It also says representations are unaffected. Objections still have to be read and weighed, and the officer’s report has to set out how they were taken into account and what changed as a result. Updated guidance on how residents and amenity societies can engage is promised but not published.

The gateway process is to be reviewed after six months, with monitoring reported to the Strategic Planning Committee.

The protocol sits outside the constitution

One detail is worth noting. The protocol will not form part of the constitution. The constitution will only refer to it, and the document itself will be published separately on the council’s website so that it can be updated “more efficiently”.

The practical effect is that the rules deciding what Westminster councillors get to vote on can be changed without a vote of Full Council. Substantive changes are to go to the Strategic Planning Committee, which is 15 councillors, rather than to all 54.

That committee picks up a new oversight job under the same report: overseeing how the National Scheme of Delegation and the referral protocol work in practice. The three planning sub-committees keep six members each, with five sitting at any one time.

Also on Wednesday’s agenda

Two other items are worth a resident’s attention.

The licensing policy vote. Item 11 is the Statement of Licensing Policy, the one behind August’s row over standing in pubs. We set out what the policy actually says when the papers appeared on 7 September. The agenda published for Wednesday records the report itself as “to follow”, so four days before the vote the version councillors will be asked to adopt is not in the public pack. The background papers from the cabinet member decision are published.

A motion on developer hospitality. Item 16, moved by Cllr Geoff Barraclough and seconded by Cllr Nafsika Butler-Thalassis, notes that “Westminster has previously faced serious questions about the relationship between councillors, developers, and the acceptance of gifts and hospitality” and that “declaring hospitality does not, by itself, make accepting it appropriate”. It asks the council to reaffirm the Nolan Principles.

What it means for you

Objecting still matters, but a petition will not buy you a hearing. Write about planning grounds, not volume. Officers have to record how representations were handled; a thousand signatures no longer changes who decides.

Check the schedule before you organise. If the application is a householder extension or a scheme of one to nine flats, no campaign will reach committee, because Schedule 1 removes the option. Save the effort for the Schedule 2 cases where the gateway exists.

Aim at the two statutory tests. The only arguments that can now open the committee door are significance to the local area or a significant planning matter under the development plan. Heritage harm to a grade I or II* building, loss of a community use and conflict with the City Plan are the openings Westminster has named itself.

Watch the tracker from November. The council has committed to publishing every gateway decision and its reason. That record is the only way to see whether the gate is being used or quietly left shut.

Wednesday, if you want to be there. Full Council sits at 7pm on 16 September at Westminster Council House, 97-113 Marylebone Road, NW1 5PT.

Related: Westminster planning news and the licensing policy councillors vote on the same night.

Sources