Stratford District Council Meeting, 12 October: What Was Decided

Full Council in brief: planning decisions handed to officers from 31 October, a motion on reorganisation costs agreed, a sewage motion sent to the Cabinet and a new information charge approved.

By Alex Harrington 2 min read Source: Stratford-on-Avon District Council
Shops along Wood Street in Stratford-upon-Avon town centre
Wood Street shops. Photo: Jeff Gogarty, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Stratford District Council meeting on Monday 12 October (Full Council, at Elizabeth House in Stratford-upon-Avon) made one big decision: to hand most planning decisions to officers from 31 October. Here is what else was decided, in brief, with links to the council’s recording.

The decisions

  • Planning: most applications will be decided by officers rather than the Planning Committee from 31 October, under new national rules. Approved by 34 votes to 2. Full story.
  • Cost of local government reorganisation: councillors agreed, without needing a vote, a motion from Cllr Pemberton asking officers to work out what the council has spent preparing for reorganisation, which the government has paused in Warwickshire. The Leader will write to the Secretary of State and local MPs asking the government to pay those costs back. The motion was agreed with a friendly amendment (recording).
  • Sewage spills and new housing: the motion asking planning officers to consult Severn Trent on every major application that could affect the foul water system, prompted by more than 60 spills in Shipston-on-Stour since 2020, goes to the Cabinet without debate, as the council’s rules require. Its original proposer wasn’t at the meeting, so Cllr Parker proposed it and Cllr Shenton seconded it (recording).
  • Participatory budgeting: a third motion, asking the council to let residents decide how part of its budget is spent, wasn’t considered because its proposer and seconder weren’t present. It will come back to a later meeting.
  • State of the District: the Leader, Cllr Susan Juned, presented the annual report, which feeds into the 2027/28 budget. Its headline is an estimated district population of 148,800 in mid-2025, up 21.1% in ten years. More in our preview.
  • Environmental information charge: councillors approved, on a show of hands, the policy referred by the Cabinet to charge for environmental information requests that take more than three and a half hours (our story).
  • Also on the agenda: a bigger Overview and Scrutiny Committee, a revised timetable for the district’s planning policy documents, a community governance review for Welford-on-Avon, the 2027–28 calendar of meetings, and councillors’ questions.

Next Full Council meeting

The next meeting of Full Council is on Monday 14 December 2026. Council meetings are open to the public and are shown live on the council’s YouTube channel. For the decisions made by the Cabinet a week earlier, see our Cabinet round-up, and for everything else, our council news.

Alex Harrington

Alex Harrington grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and runs What's up, Stratford? as an independent guide to the town.

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