A FORMER district councillor says merging the authority’s two planning committees is “stupid” and not the right thing to do.

Councillor Paul Tuthill, who served as head of the Souther Area Planning Committee previously, said the suggestion from current councillor David Chambers to merge the northern and southern committees was a bad idea.

Cllr Tuthill, who is no longer a district councillor but sits on Worcestershire County Council and Malvern Town Council, said: “It is a stupid idea because every councillor is on the relevant planning committee.

“When I was chairman of the Southern Area, we always prided ourselves that the man from Mars, if he came down, wouldn’t know which party we were all from. Having the system as is gives every councillor a chance to comment on applications for their ward. This way,the public knows their councillor will be looking at plans which affect them.”

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We previously reported how almost a third of Malvern Hills District Council planning meetings have been cancelled since January 2018, with some meetings only debating and making decisions on one or two applications.

Worcester City Council and Wychavon District Council both only have one planning committee meeting which decides on several applications each month.

The council’s northern planning committee is currently chaired by Cllr John Michael with Cllr Julie Wood chairing the southern planning committee. Both receive £2,218.50 extra on top of their basic councillor allowance each year for the role.

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Cllr Chambers called for the council’s two planning committees to be combined when he was council leader in 2017 - cutting the membership of the committees from 38 to 22 - but was defeated by his fellow Tory councillors.

He said: “My views haven’t changed at all. I think this is the perfect time to merge them into one. If that were to be the case I don’t see the need for all 38 councillors to sit on the planning committee. That would be far too big. That is not to say both committees don’t do a good job because I believe they have been doing that.”

Last month, council leader Sarah Rouse said they would not be merging committees, saying the current system “ allows every Councillor to be engaged with the planning system and to represent our diverse rural district.