Parish council calls for local authority to lose its planning powers
APARISH council in a Widnes neighbourhood has blasted the local authority’s planning department in a scathing attack demanding that it loses its powers.
Halebank Parish Council was successful in its third Judicial Review into a decision made by parent authority Halton Borough Council.
The High Court, sitting at the Royal Courts Of Justice in London, quashed Halton’s decision to grant planning permission to French waste giants Veolia to build a waste transfer station in Halebank.
If it had gone ahead, the permission would have allowed Veolia to transport 85,000 tonnes of commercial and industrial waste and 40,000 tonnes of construction, demolition and excavation materials annually through Halebank, with up to 150 extra vehicles on the village roads every day, 90 of those being HGVs.
Acting parish council chairman, Cllr Kieran Reed said: “This is not a time for celebration. This decision should never have been made by Halton Council in the first place.
“Parish councillors attended the meeting where this decision was made and we told Halton to approve it would be unlawful and they carried on regardless.”
According to Cllr Reed, the Halebank site was not listed in the Joint Waste Development
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Plan – a legal planning agreement between Halton Borough Council and five other authorities, Liverpool, Wirral, St Helens, Knowsley and Sefton – as one to be used for a waste transfer station.
He said: “It beggars belief that Halton signed up to this with the other authorities and then chose to ignore it. This is just one of the reasons we will be writing to the Secretary Of State For Housing, Communities And Local Government to demand Halton loses its planning powers.
“We believe they are a disgrace and make their decisions based purely on economic need, riding rough shod over planning laws.”
Cllr Reed explained this is the third occasion Halebank Parish Council has been forced to take Halton to court via the judicial review process for unlawful planning decisions.
Halton Borough Council’s Delivery And Allocations Local Plan (DALP) is currently awaiting inspection by a Government appointed planning inspector following two rounds of public consultation.
Cllr Reed added: “Halton want to take virtually all of the greenbelt out of our village for housing. There is no infrastructure in place for this in terms of roads, facilities and shops. Plus our area is sandwiched between two top tier COMAH sites. One of which Halton’s planners conveniently left off their consultation map!
“The people of Halebank have had enough of this behaviour and it is totally wrong and unfair that they should be forced to engage in costly legal battles time and time again because of Halton Council’s legal decisions.
“It has to stop.”
The parish council will be asking the Government to prevent Halton Borough Council from continuing with the DALP, Cllr Reed added.
A spokeswoman for Halton Borough Council said: “The council will implement the judge’s decision, the effect of which is to quash the existing planning permission.
“This now means that the planning application will require consideration again by the Local Planning Authority.
“The judgement centres around a technical assessment of a policy within the Waste Local Plan and the level of information provided to the planning committee at the time of considering the application.
“This will need to be addressed when that re-consideration takes place.”
A Veolia spokeswoman said: “Following the outcome of the Judicial Review we will study the decision of the court carefully.
“The transfer station at Pickerings Road is designed to reduce the number and length of HGV waste movements and the site we have selected has been specifically chosen to avoid inconvenience to the local community and improve sustainability.
“The court has passed the application back to the Council to redetermine and we will make them aware of the environmental case in favour of the development.”