Maldon District Council is on the brink of losing more than £1million and falling into special measures after struggling to process major planning applications within set time frames.

The council has been identified as being "at risk" and could be plunged into special measures by the Secretary of State.

This would mean decision-making on major plans would be taken away from the council and developers could go straight to the Planning Inspectorate.

Maldon District Council is already battling a three-week backlog of applications and has hired extra staff in an effort to turn the situation around.

Chief Executive, Fiona Marshall said; “We are proactively taking steps to build a resilient Planning Service which will be able to deal with the increasing number of very complex major planning applications.

"The additional resources required to deal with these major applications is being addressed and will be funded at no cost to the council tax payers, through the additional income from planning application fees which will be payable to the Council.  

"In addition, Members are being asked to consider a range of options which will ensure that we have the optimum levels of staff across the Planning Service to deal with the fluctuating demands of the Service.”

Full story in the Standard this week