Tuesday, 18th June, 2013
A ‘waste’ of money?
9.15PM: A mole tells me that at 7.10PM this evening, PCNPA received notice that PCC are withdrawing this application, so it will not be considered at tomorrow’s (Wed) meeting.
4.00PM, 19th June: In a letter submitted to the National Park yesterday, the agent acting on behalf of the council, Hyder Consulting Ltd. states:
Further to the letter of your Chief Executive dated 17th June 2013 addressed to the County Council’s Director of Transportation, Housing and Environment, in which you inform that you are unable to accept the request for the planning application to be deferred, I have been instructed, as agent for the Council to confirm that we wish to formally withdraw the planning application, as currently submitted.
This position follows the advice provided to the Council that it could, if so wished, withdraw the planning application in order to address the reasons for refusal in a future submission.
In the circumstances therefore, this is considered to be a necessary course of action to enable the Council to consider its position more fully, in order to determine an appropriate response in the light of the planning officer’s recommendation and the reasons for refusal.
I should be grateful if you could formally confirm the Authority’s acceptance of this request and that as a consequence, the planning application should not be considered for determination at tomorrow’s Development Management Committee Meeting.
I should also be grateful if you could advise your colleagues that the request, previously made by ourselves to speak at tomorrow’s Meeting is also hereby withdrawn.
Members of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park will meet tomorrow to consider the controversial application submitted by Pembrokeshire County Council to build a Civic Amenity site on land adjacent to Brooklands Nursing Home, near New Hedges.
The officer’s recommendation of refusal is set out in the longest report for a planning application I’ve ever seen. The full report to members of the committee making the decision is sixty pages long, and can be viewed as a PDF file on the National Park website.
Due to the well-publicised public interest in this application, the National Park anticipates that members of the public will attend the meeting to observe the proceedings in large numbers. It is for this reason that it’s being held at the Cleddau Bridge Hotel instead of the National Park’s humble portacabin, and any rumours that this licensed venue was chosen to better-accommodate the boozy celebrations of objectors anticipating a refusal, are surely nothing more than Pembrokeshire speculation!
That said, if the planning officer’s thorough recommendation is any guide to the likely decision by members over this waste recycling facility for the south-east of the county at tomorrow’s meeting, then there is every expectation that the council’s plans will suffer a savage demise.
The reasons setting out the recommendation for the refusal are numerous, and include visual intrusion, amenity, issues relating to conservation and disturbance created by ‘significant vehicular movements.’ Among many other factors cited in the officer’s recommendation for refusal is “Insufficient information…” provided by the council to establish that the proposal would “…serve predominantly the National Park area,” which is required in order for the proposal to satisfy the aims of the National Park’s development plan.
If the plans are turned down tomorrow, it would be interesting to know the accumulation of expenditure the council has outlaid on this project, from the moment that this plot of farmland adjacent to Brooklands Nursing Home was selected. It might well be considered a waste of money – and time. You’ll remember that time was of the essence last year, when the plans were initially showcased, in order for the council to be able to secure funding. If the project can’t be delivered on the land adjacent to Brooklands, and the council’s need for a new Civic Amenity site hasn’t diminished, then the council might have spent a lot of time and money, to end up nowhere.
Of course, should the members of the National Park go along with the advice before them tomorrow, there is another option open to the council, and that is to take any refusal by the National Park to appeal at the Planning Inspectorate. Should this happen, the amount of public money being spent – by PCC in bringing the appeal, and by PCNPA in defending its decision at a Public Inquiry – would ratchet up, and could end up casting a shadow over the amount spent to date.
❏The rumours of my online demise were expected, but unfounded. My only feeble excuse in response to questions over why I’ve not updated in a while, is that since the last post, the summer of 2013 intervened – all two weeks of it – but my picnic table and sun hat have now both been stowed away until the next tropical weather front reaches these shores.
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I attended the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park (PCNP) planning meeting and I, like every one else in attendance, was surprised that Pembrokeshire County Council (PCC) had withdrawn the application.
The reason PCC gave for the withdrawal was “in order to determine an appropriate response in the light of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Parks planning officer’s recommendation and the reasons for refusal”.
Mr Westley whom I presume was responsible for the application has every right to ask for it to be withdrawn. I was for many years on the Pembrokeshire County Council planning committee and applicants often did this. I was amazed that Cllr Michael Williams, Cllr Tony Brinsden and Christine Gwyther all complained when the council had every legal right to take that action.
In my opinion once PCC had notified PCNP of the withdrawal of the application that is where the chairperson should have stopped the discussion on the subject. I would suggest that Cllr Williams, Cllr Brinsden and Ms Gwyther have compromised their position with their verbal outbursts regarding this application and should withdraw from any discussion should there be a future application by PCC on this site.
Many, when being informed that their application is being recommended for refusal, are advised they can always appeal to the planning inspector, I have done this myself and been successful, so I would suggest that PCC goes beyond the obvious bias of the PCNP committee and appeal against any possible future refusal by the PCNP.
Yes but why was it done so late in the day? From the statement sent to the NP we can see that requests had been made for a deferment and the park said NO, so why did this have to be left until the 11th hour? It’s manners if anything else.
People may or may not know this proposal in the application is located off the main Tenby road which at this location forms the boundary between PCNPA and PCC as the planning authorities, with PCNPA covering the side of the road where this proposal is located.
If the plans were being considered against the council’s development plan rather than the National Park’s I’m pretty sure they would be contrary and recommended for refusal, so basically the council’s asking the park members to grant permission for something its own adopted policy wouldn’t permit going there if they were the planning authority, or if it was the other side of the road.
As for the members of the park compromising their positions, I would have to agree with you Malcolm that once pulled from the agenda there should have been no discussion on this. You mention Michael Williams and Christine Gwyther complaining…two opportunists who have never been known to keep their tongues still when there is the chance for populist comments to be made!