ENFORCEMENT notices served by Barnsley Council for breaches of planning regulations have rocketed in the last three years.

In 2018, just 12 were dished out, but by 2021 - the latest year available - it had quadrupled to 59.

A council report said "The service has made good progress in progressing formal enforcement actions and this is reflected in the figures which shows an increase year on year. "Particularly this was from 2020, when a second planning enforcement officer post was created which has given the service much-needed extra capacity and the resilience to respond and deal effectively with breaches of planning control.

"Regarding the number of enforcement notices served, Barnsley currently ranks joint 13th nationally and joint fourth outside of London. "The service has a triage system to assess and prioritise complaints in order or the seriousness of the harm being caused so that the resources of the service can be deployed in the most effective way.

"This approach has included filtering out low-priority cases at an early stage to allow officers to invest time and resources resolving more difficult or complex cases. "It has also enabled complaints where no breach of planning control has been identified - such as neighbour disputes or civil matters - to be resolved at the earliest point of contact.