A professionally qualified planner must be on the executive team of every local authority according to the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), which rejects claims made by Housing Minister Caroline Flint that Local Authorities can make do without a chief planning officer.

The RTPI believes that having a planner at executive level would improve the quality of planning decisions being made at local government level. It would also improve the likelihood of local authorities delivering the government's planning priorities in a way communities find acceptable.

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Giving oral evidence to the Communities and Local Government committee investigating planning skills, Ms Flint said she thought the decision on whether to appoint a chief planning officer should be up to individual local authorities. The RTPI believes local authorities that do not have a professionally qualified planner on their executive team undermine their ability to deliver coherent and consistent planning policy. They also increase the risk of making poor planning decisions, which could have a long term negative impact on their local communities.

RTPI Director of Policy, Rynd Smith, said: "Without the well considered input of a senior and professionally qualified planner, the ability of local authorities to make good planning decisions is hugely diminished. The only way to ensure that the creation and delivery of sound planning policy is given the priority it requires is to have a professionally qualified planner sitting on the executive board. A local authority without that level of expertise at the pointy end of the decision making process is like a ship without a pilot."

(CD/JM)