A CRAVEN councillor has hit out at what he describes as 'discourteous' behaviour from North Yorkshire Council's planning department after an email went unanswered for more than two months.

Cllr Simon Myers (Con, Mid-Craven) told a meeting of the authority that it was 'not good enough' that he had failed to get a response to his communication to the planning department asking for an application to be considered by the council's planning committee, and not decided by officers with delegated powers.

Cllr Myers, who as a member of the former Craven District Council was in 2020 put in charge of turning round the then planning department following a damning peer review, has asked for an application to build an additional silage storage area at Souber Dairy, Bank Newton, be decided by the area planning committee, because of traffic concerns.

He told last week's Skipton and Ripon meeting of North Yorkshire Council, "Craven members will be very aware of the very tortuous process we went through to try and get our planning department to respond in any meaningful way to members and to the general public.

"I sought to refer to committee a planning application about two and half months ago; not only have I not been told whether it has been referred to the committee or not, but I have not even had an acknowledgement to my email to the chief planning officer, to the planning (department) and everyone else, including the chairman and deputy chairman of the planning committee.

"I simply don't think it is good enough; it is discourteous; I don't expect it to a member of the public, and I certainly don't expect it to an elected councillor."

Cllr Myers added: "I'd like to know what progress we are making under the new management of our planning officers and them realising how important it is to respond at least to elected members and to correspondence from the public."

In response, North Yorkshire Council’s assistant director for planning, Trevor Watson, said:  “The consideration of this planning application is complex, but we are talking to the applicant to ensure that it can hopefully go before members at the November meeting.”