“I’m a democratically elected member so therefore I have voted against an application, I do not have to say why,” a planning committee member in Hertfordshire insisted in a video widely circulated on social media, despite being repeatedly told by the Chair of the meeting that he did, in fact, have to give a reason to refuse an application.

In a second video clip from an authority in Essex, a planning committee member angrily told planning officers they should be “ashamed” for repeatedly recommending policy- compliant applications for approval.