A MAJOR grant of almost £450,000 has been awarded to West Devon Borough council for its excellent performance in meeting targets. The news, welcomed by the Council?s leaders, comes hard on the heels of performance figures released earlier this year, which show that the service is one of the best in the country. The council was the highest ranked Devon authority for dealing with both ?major? and ?other? planning applications for the year ending September 2004. The award is based on performance achievements in a number of areas: l Meeting and exceeding Government targets for the speed in determining all categories of planning applications, l Improving development control performance across the board, l Providing electronic planning services. The planning department has not only met its Government targets but has surpassed them, showing continuous year-on-year improvement. By meeting all of the set standards, the council has also been awarded a bonus. The money will be welcome at a time when the council is seeking to drive forward improvements to its website access, customer service and implementing the recently introduced reforms in the planning system. Stephen Gill, borough planning officer, said: ?Everyone has worked extremely hard to achieve this award. We received a very substantial sum last year for our excellent performance results. ?To have not only continued that high performance, but to have actually improved upon it, is really an extraordinary achievement for a small authority like West Devon.?
