Anger at council’s development control

LAST week after a development control meeting one of the councillors on the committee called it an embarrassment.

Let me agree with Cllr Thompson the planning department at HBC has been that for years in my opinion.

As a resident and one time parish councillor for Halebank this community has suffered from a catalogue of bad decisions by this committee, its officers and its legal advice.

Resulting in three well documented successful judicial reviews against the council brought by Halebank Parish Council.

The last one was against the councils’ decision to grant the planning application by Veolia for a waste transfer and treatment facility.

The High Court Judge quashed the application.

Neither HBC or Veolia appealed that decision.

And now we have the fiasco because of the failure of this council’s planning department that Veolia have appealed to the secretary of state because of the council’s non-determination of this planning application.

Strangely I receive the planning applications every week and I have seen no new application from Veolia for that site since that verdict.

So now we have the sideshow of a planning inspector from Bristol making decisions that will affect local people’s lives.

Yet all we get from this draconian Labour council is more power to local people but only when it suits them.

Hopefully the planning inspector will see this for what it is – an outrageous sham.

Mind you if the decision goes in favour of Veolia then of course our trusted labour council leadership can blame the Tory Government once again.

In one of the other successful judicial reviews brought by Halebank Parish Council against HBC planning department it is alleged the High Court judge suggested that HBC planning department didn’t understand its own planning rules.

And it seems that if residents contact their MP he can not get involved with planning matters unless it is saving the private golf course from development.