October 12th, 2025Council planning applications delays tough

An article in the last edition of The Local (Issue 341, September 22) raised the ire of some in the planning industry. The article raised the issue of harassment against Hepburn Shire Council staff with CEO Bradley Thomas saying it had to stop. Here are the thoughts of building designer Stephen Schenk and Julie Lee. And a right of reply by Mr Thomas.

Building designer Stephen Schenk, owner and operator of Unicorn Architecture in Daylesford, says he first approached Hepburn Shire Council in 2022 to talk about planning delays.
“I had a meeting with CEO Bradley Thomas and five or six senior managers and pleaded with them to treat this as a destination for planners, not a training camp for young kids out of university.
“And I said if they didn’t pay suitable wages, they were going to lose all their planners and within three weeks, three of them left and went to Mount Alexander.”
Since that time, unacceptable delays in planning applications have continued, he says. There’s also a lack of communication.
“I have customers who have been waiting 12 and 18 months for a permit and they’ve documented their phone calls and their emails to the council and they’ve got six and eight months’ worth of calls that have never been returned.
“Now, they’re happy that a permit might take a while, they understand that. But the fact that they’re being blatantly ignored and never getting a return call to keep them advised… I’ve got clients threatening legal action against me for not doing my job.
“My entire portfolio is within the shire, making the council my single largest stakeholder. Every decision impacts my clients, and I have an obligation to keep them updated. The council’s lack of communication places me in a difficult position.
“And there’s no-one to hold the council accountable. I have written to the Local Government Inspectorate, Catherine King, the state planning department. And I get nothing back. They currently have 175 applications outstanding. That’s crazy.”
Stephen said he had told the council to think of building designers, architects and planners as “cash cows”.
“People buy a property, they pay land rates. Once they engage us, we pay planning fees. We pay for property reports. We pay for building reports. Then we’re paying bin rates, we’re paying planning fees for the septic to go in. This is where the council’s money comes from.
“The planning permits that are outstanding at the moment are going to help you over time create a bigger income for the shire. Instead, they put rates up by 10 per cent.
“All we want is communication. Every other builder, planning person, architect, designer are all saying the same thing. There’s no communication.”
Stephen said his own mental health was suffering and he admits he has used inappropriate language at times with council staff and officers.
“I do get frustrated and angry and I know I am turning into someone I don’t want to be. But there have been so many broken promises. I have closed the office, and work from home now, because it’s better to financially cut your losses eventually than go bankrupt. And that is where council are pushing me at the moment.
“The CEO (Bradley Thomas) consistently portrays himself and the council as victims, while failing to acknowledge that these issues stem from council practices. The situation will not improve until accountability replaces defensiveness.
“As long as governing bodies ignore this behaviour and until systemic change occurs, ratepayers and professionals like myself will continue to raise concerns. In the meantime, the CEO will continue to frame criticism as ‘harassment’ while avoiding accountability for poor service delivery.”

Town Planner Julie Lee, owner of Clunes-based NR Links, said while it had been a nightmare over the past few years, she believed things could be looking up.
“They have two planners and there are another two starting next week. One from Pyrenees and one from Mount Alexander – which tells me that they’re paying the right amount because no-one’s going to move from Mount Alexander and come down (in wages).
“So, the planning team is back to double what it has been for many years plus they have a cadet town planner and two administration staff – one is sharing with Central Goldfields Shire which is what I have been pushing for since last year.”
Julie said she believed while the staff numbers will be up, it will still take a long time, perhaps a year, to get through the backlog of planning applications. She last heard there were 180 outstanding.
“It is legislated in the Planning and Environment Act that a council has 60 days plus 30 days to process referrals for an application. As well, town planning is a state statutory requirement for councils, and other items are not, and funds should be channelled from different areas to meet their statutory requirements. I understand why the council have to make cutbacks but it’s a statutory responsibility.”
Julie said people also had the opportunity to take their planning matters to VCAT – at a cost of about $3000-$4000.
“I do think people need to be fairly proactive and not get angry, but know that if this happens again, you’ve got these steps you can take. And we should be working through our councillors and getting them to stand up as well.
“I know that, tragically, staff are crying, but homeowners are trying to get planning permits through.
“These delays also mean development, monies, tourism opportunities, accommodation, new retail etc, all go elsewhere, and this has a critical impact on our community. What has been happening is not normal, but hopefully the future is looking better.”

Hepburn Shire Council CEO Bradley Thomas said the turnaround times on planning permits was “absolutely not where we want it to be but that’s pretty consistent across the state”.
“We need to do things to improve that and we certainly are – we’ve increased resourcing within the planning team over the past couple of years.
“Planners do come and go from time to time, so sometimes we’re fully staffed, other times we’re not fully staffed. We’ve just been through a bit of a recruitment drive, so we do have some more staff coming on in the short term, but there’s a whole range of factors that contribute to where we are.
“Part of that is complications of the planning system. We’re obviously trying to get the decision right, not just rush it. Often we’ve got to get more information off the clients and off the people that are putting their applications through. We’ve got to get to referral agencies.
“I think also it’s important to note that planning is not just planning permits, the planning team is also doing enforcement when people do the wrong thing. The planning team is the one that really puts through the submissions in regards to Dan Murphy’s, the Western Renewable Link Project…
“So there’s a lot happening in that space. At the end of the day, we know we need to get better in terms of our planning permit turnaround. We’re certainly doing that with more system improvements.
“We’re trying to work with everyone. I know people might be frustrated but they can still conduct themselves in a professional manner when dealing with us.”

Words: Donna Kelly