Latest news with #JoanneJohnson
BBC News
17-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Agency staff spend puts Swale council £900k over planning budget
A shortage of planning professionals is one of the reasons a Kent council has overspent by £900,000 in the past year, a report has Borough Council, covering Sheppey, Sittingbourne and Faversham, spent £1.24m on planning in the past financial year, despite budgeting £337,000 for the told the council's policy and resources committee meeting on 12 June that the overspend was "largely driven" by the cost of agency staff paired with a drop in Angela Harrison said she was getting "déjà vu" over the high costs despite other departments "shaving to the bone". Local authorities receive money from developers when they submit planning applications but Swale council's head of place Joanne Johnson said it was "very hard to predict" planning councillors thought the issues were predictable and the authority should have planned properly for them, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.A shortage of planning professionals has caused issues for councils nationwide for some January, the Home Builders' Federation reported 80% of the 134 councils it asked were operating below full capacity."An estimated 2,200 planning officers are needed across England and Wales to address the gap," it said.A Swale council spokesman said its planning department should have 34.3 full-time equivalent roles and there were currently five reasons for the overspend included over-budget appeals process 2024-25, Swale set aside £23,600 for paying appeal costs, but overshot this by £139, Mike Baldock said: "Even though we have a very high success rate at appeal we can expect there to be a high level of appeal costs. Any appeal is going to cost a considerable amount of money."A Swale spokesman said in 2024-25 there were 45 appeals against council decisions, of which 31 were ruled in favour of the local authority.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Yahoo
Prosecutor still wants Augusta teens to be tried as adults
AUGUSTA, Kan. (KSNW) – The prosecution still wants two teenagers to be tried as adults in an Augusta murder case. The teens are currently charged as juveniles in the death of 93-year-old Joanne Johnson. In January, a judge said the teens do not qualify to be prosecuted as adults. A Butler County District Court spokesperson said Friday that the prosecutor has appealed the decision. Possible measles exposure risk at Garden City hotel On Sept. 6, 2023, Johnson was found dead in her home in the 1700 block of Robbins St. in Augusta. Authorities believe she was killed between the evening of Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023, and the evening of Sept. 3, 2023. Nearly a year later, on Aug. 15, 2024, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said that two 14-year-old girls from Augusta were arrested. They were both charged two weeks later with first-degree murder. In December 2024, the assistant county attorney made the motion to prosecute the juveniles as adults, which was denied. A motion hearing that was scheduled for Friday has been continued. A new date has not been set yet. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news by downloading our mobile app and signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track 3 Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
