VPRS 3153 Town Planning Appeals Files, Annual Single Number System [CANCELLED: RE-SERIALIZED AS VPRS 4068/P]

This series consists of town planning appeal files which contain appeals from developers, builders, companies, individuals, community groups etc against decisions relating to town planning and development made by the Town and Country Planning Board, municipalities and regional authorities. The files also contain other documentation necessary for the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal to conduct a hearing.The Town Planning Appeals Tribunal was established by the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1968 (No.7676) and commenced operations in February 1969. Prior to the establishment of the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal the Minister for Local Government heard all planning appeals. Accordingly, matters relating to planning appeals for the period before 1969 may be included with correspondence files in VPRS 5397 Local Government Correspondence (Multiple Number).Previous SeriesFrom 1969 to the end of 1974 the Local Government Department (VA 601) provided administrative support to the Tribunal. File numbers were allocated to appeal files using the Department's multiple number system. The Tribunal, however, top numbered the files with its own control symbols which were the appeal numbers. For the years 1969 and 1970 files were top numbered with a single number sequence of appeal numbers. Those files have been transferred into custody as VPRS 4068, Town Planning Appeals Files (Single Number) and VPRS 4068 is a previous series to this series.The files created in 1971 were originally registered under the Local Government Department's multiple number system (see VPRS 5397 and VPRS 4068) but were renumbered with the new annual single number appeal file number system which commenced in 1971. Both the annual single number and multiple number of each file is recorded on the Records Description List for 1971 files, the multiple number being listed in brackets.The Tribunal commenced the annual single number system of appeal numbers in 1971. The files in this series (VPRS 3153) are files which bear an annual single number appeal number. The files are arranged sequentially by the appeal numbers which are generally written on or across the top left corner of file covers in red ink.The appeal numbers may have a suffix of one of the letters A, B, C or D. It appears that the suffix refers to the division of the Tribunal to which the appeal was referred for hearing. From the first appeal number in 1974 (74/1) the use of an "X" prefix commenced in the format, for example, X74/123. The significance of the "X" has not been established. In 1974 the Ministry for Planning assumed administrative responsibility for the Tribunal and file numbers commenced to be allocated from the Ministry's registry numbering system. Appeal files continued to be arranged in the sequence of annual single number appeal numbers.Subsequent SeriesThis series ended in 1981 when the functions of the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal were assumed by the Planning Appeals Board (VA 1408). The board heard appeals which had previously been heard by a number of other bodies. Appeal files created by the Board have been transferred in VPRS 8345 which is a subsequent series to this series.Control RecordsThis series was transferred to the custody of the Public Record Office in several consignments between 1980 and 1984. At that time it was believed that registers of appeals and an index to appeal files had been created and were retained by the Town Planning Appeals Tribunal. As at 1992 the registers were retained in the custody of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. They have been registered as VPRS 8376 Register of Planning Appeals [RECORDS NOT TRANSFERRED]. An index which indexes this series (VPRS 3153) from 1976 onwards has also been retained by the AAT and has been registered as VPRS 8348 Card Index To Appeal Files (Planning) [RECORDS NOT TRANSFERRED]. The whereabouts of the index covering earlier years has not been determined.