From 31 October Rochford councillors cannot call in planning applications. Instead they, or a parish council, get 21 days to ask for a gateway assessment.

From Saturday 31 October, no Rochford District councillor will be able to call in a planning application and send it to the Development Committee, and a high number of objections will no longer push a scheme in front of councillors either.

The change is national. It comes from the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026, approved by Parliament in July, and every council in England has to follow them. Rochford District Council says councils that do not “risk their planning decisions being overturned in the courts”. Southend’s own version of the same change, agreed in September, is covered in our earlier report.

What Rochford has decided for itself is how residents, councillors and parish councils in Rayleigh, Rochford, Hockley and the rest of the district can still ask for a big application to be heard in public. All councillors met on 21 October to agree that local framework.

What changes

Until now, the council says, “controversial or major applications have always gone to the Development Committee”, and so did any application a committee member called in.

Under the new rules applications fall into two groups:

  • Smaller applications must be decided by planning officers. That includes home extensions, housing schemes of fewer than 10 homes, minor business applications and technical approvals. The council describes officers as “politically neutral” and says they “can only apply national and local policy, deciding within the rules”.
  • Bigger, more complex applications can also be decided by officers, but can go to committee “if they are deemed of strong importance to the area”.

The council says the change touches only a small number of cases: about 96% of applications in the district already never reach committee, the same as the national average.

The gateway assessment

In place of call-in, Rochford has agreed these steps:

  • Every councillor, and the town or parish council for the area, will be told about every application when it comes in.
  • Any councillor, or that town or parish council, can ask within 21 days for the application to go through a “gateway assessment”, which applies set rules to test whether it should go to committee.
  • Housing schemes of 10 or more homes, larger commercial schemes and the council’s own applications will always go through the gateway.
  • The reasons for every decision on whether an application goes to committee will be recorded, published and reported regularly to the committee.

The arrangements will be reviewed in six months. The Government itself must review how the national rules are working by October 2028.

What residents can still do

For anyone in Rayleigh or Hockley watching an application near them, the practical route is unchanged: comment on the application itself, and ask your district councillor or your town or parish council to request a gateway assessment within the 21-day window.

Cllr Phil Capon, Chair of the Development Committee, said: “These are national rules that every council in England must follow, and we’ve made the changes we must make. What matters to local people is that their voice still counts. Every comment on a planning application will still be read and weighed, and every decision will still be made against national rules and local policies.”

He pointed to the district’s Local Plan, which is on hold: “The biggest say residents have over what’s built in our district is through the Local Plan, which adds a vital local layer of rules. Although we’re waiting on the Government to release us from their holding direction on the Plan, I encourage everyone to get involved when we are permitted to start consultation.”

The Government’s guidance on the National Scheme of Delegation, published on 1 June 2026, is on GOV.UK. Applications in the district are on Rochford District Council’s website.