Croydon council could stop directly informing people about their neighbour’s planning applications in a bid to cut costs.

Currently, the council sends a letter to all residents who live near to a proposed development informing them of the plans. If the proposal passes, neighbours will have to rely upon posters displayed in the street.

The council has claimed sending these letters costs them £85,000 per year. Over the next three years, they must cut their budget by £45 million.

Molly Klidzia, Secretary of the Morland Park Resident’s Association, described the plans as “nonsense”.

She said: “[The council] are more and more eroding the public’s right to information.

“And where will they put the posters? Are they going to provide us with community notice boards? If they are on a tree or a lamppost, they’ll be so small that no one can read them. It’s disgraceful.”

A spokesperson for the East Coulsdon Resident’s Association said: “There’s a risk that developers and residents might take the posters down. Using a poster just isn’t adequate.”

Leader of the Council, Mike Fisher, defended the plans. He said: “At the moment we write to everyone within a certain distance of a planning application and one of the biggest complaints we get is, ‘I live next door and I didn’t get a letter’.

“You can live next door and be more than so-many metres away and not get a letter, and you can be four or five doors away in the other direction and you do get one.”

As part of the plans, resident’s associations will be able to get applications sent to the planning committee. This would mean planning applications would have to be discussed by councillors before being approved.

Fisher added that this would give local residents a “greater role”, and overall the plans would “improve the amount of notice and reduce the costs significantly.”