Planning matters are being dealt with more quickly as improvements within the National Park’s department are noted.

Late last year the amount to be spent on planning consultants was raised by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority to £25,000 to help assist with a backlog of planning applications which had been held up by covid restrictions, IT issues and staff issues.

In the latest performance report covering 2020-21 it is noted that problems with registering casework due to external IT planning system issues have been resolved but lockdown restrictions still impacted work on office access and site visits.

Despite this there has been an improvement in performance, the report presented to audit and corporate services review committee on Wednesday, May 12 adds, with the percentage of all planning applications determined within time periods required moved from a red risk rating to amber at 66.31 per cent.

“The average time taken to determine all planning applications in days has decreased from 113 days in Q3 to 109.75 days in Q4,” added Mair Thomas, performance and compliance coordinator.

However there had been a fall in the number of enforcement cases investigated within 84 days which committee member Clr. Michael Williams and committee chairman Clr. Dai Clements said was an issue that required improving.

Clr. Clements said enforcement was an issue residents were raising with her more and more, adding “once one person gets away with something a few more pop up.”