IMPROVEMENTS to Craven District Council's planning services are 'taking longer than hoped', said the lead member in charge of turning the department around.

Councillor Simon Myers told a meeting of the council that a 'massive backlog' was hampering improvements to the way the council processes and deals with planning applications.

In response to a question at the policy meeting on how improvements were progressing, Cllr Myers said "there are big problems that have to be overcome and the way to solve that is to get rid of the backlog."

But, he explained getting rid of the backlog was being held up by school holidays and because senior planning officers were' firefighting', while the planning manager was spending all his time dealing with complaints.

The council took steps to drive improvements to its planning services following a damning 'peer challenge review' by the Local Government Association in September last year.

The review was carried out by local government officers and councillors over two days and included talking to councillors, officers and external partners, such as parish councils, and also observing online planning committee meetings.

Over the last year, the council has set up a planning improvement panel, and appointed a senior officer to oversee the service.