A district council is looking to squeeze three planning meetings into two in a bid to make savings.

A district council is looking to squeeze three planning meetings into two in a bid to make savings.

South Norfolk Council stages monthly east, south west and north west area planning committees at venues across the district.

But councillors are being asked to reduce the number of meetings and bring them all under one roof - saving the authority more than �18,000 a year.

Andrew Gregory, director of planning, housing and the built environment, said the three-committee system was popular with applicants, agents and residents,

but staging meetings at Loddon, Wymondham, and Costessey had resource and cost implications.

Members of the council's planning overview sub-committee are being asked to approve proposals to cut the number of planning committees from three to two and to move all of its new east and west area meetings to South Norfolk House at Long Stratton.

Mr Gregory said the move would mean committees would deal with more applications and longer meetings, however, councillors were also being asked to give officers more powers to make delegated decisions

on less contentious applications that receive only one objection.