A FORMER planning supremo has described Hyndburn Coun-cil’s handling of an application for a controversial buggy racing track in a Rishton wildlife heritage area as "disgusting".
Ex-Planning Committee chairman Councillor Janet Storey, who sat on the committee for 10 years before coming off this year, was outraged after officers reversed their recommendation for the Hermitage Street proposal to "approve’’ at the last minute, forcing her and fellow-objectors to hurriedly re-word their arguments.
The plan had provoked 62 letters and petitions bearing 223 signatures in objection, citing noise pollution and damage to wildlife on the site, which is already used for clay pigeon shooting on Sundays.
Councillor Storey had reassured residents the plans had been marked down for refusal, only for supplementary notes to be given out on the day, detailing a crucial change of heart by Lancashire County Council.
Planning chairman Councillor John Griffiths admitted the reversal was "unusual" but defended the decision to grant the applicant, Mr Thomas Threlfall, temporary permission for 12 months.
Councillor Storey said: "I couldn’t believe it when they said the recommendation had been changed.
"It’s a really lovely area and very rural with deer, foxes, rabbits, squirrels and kingfishers. We were under the impression there was a wildlife corridor there but it’s not in the Borough Plan as a wildlife area. It’s a farce."
Former councillor and fellow protester Tim O’Kane added: "You could expect this kind of thing to happen in Zimbabwe under Mugabe but this is Hyndburn, not Harare. The 220-plus people who objected to this application simply did not get a fair hearing."
Sue Birtwell, who lives off Brantwood, Clayton-le-Moors, said: "It’s a lovely area. There’s a wildlife corridor from the Dunkenhalgh.
"All the pollution and noise will spoil a really nice nature area. We already have to put up with the clay pigeon shooting every weekend. Nearly everybody on the estate signed the petition, saying they didn’t want it to go ahead."
The buggy racing can now go ahead between 10am and 6pm Monday to Friday and from 10am to 2pm on Saturday. The planning permission also allows military games on the site, which was a former sewage works.
Councillor Griffiths said: "It’s the first time I’ve known this to happen in many years but I think we took the right course by not deferring it and by going ahead with the 12-month trial period. We’re always taking views right up to the last minute."
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mary o'rourke (06/07/2008 at 21:52)
Tim O'Kane, Clayton Le Moors (09/07/2008 at 10:43)
What happened next was just pure farce. There were four speakers on thie buggy racing planning app. One was the agent for the buggy owners, and the other three speaking against the application were Janet Storey, myself , and a Mr Birtwell who is a resident who regularly walks by the site and has seen six deer there in the last few months. Janet as ward councillor was not time restricted on how long she could speak but the other three were restricted to three minutes.
Minutes before going into the committee room I was sat outside finalising my three minute speech when Mr Birtwell told me he had been informed that the officer recommendation had been changed at the eleventh hour to one of approval. I said they could not do that as the recommendation had been in the public domain for over a week and there may well have been further petitions had it been known they were going to approve.
Sat beside me was the agent for the applicant who started hastily rewriting HIS three minute speech as it came as news to him as well. He had been expecting to attack the officer decision and ending up defending it. The other three speakers had been expecting to DEFEND the decision and then had to attack it !
The first minute of my alloted three was taken up with the mishandling of the application and mine, Mr Birtwells and Janet Storeys complaints were in effect shot to pieces with no recourse.Janet, along with another former Chairman of the Planning committee both said to me this was completely out of order. In my ten years on that planning committee it has been unheard of to deal with in this manner. Irrespective of whether you were for or against the application, the public has a right to know what the professional advice is. An hour earlier the same committee room was mowed out with people who had turned out to protest against the Tesco planning application. Had it been marked down for refusal, then probably nobody would have turned up, as was the case recently when the Oswaldtwistle Tesco was down for rejection. An interesting adjunct to this is that about fifteen years ago, before I was on the council, there was a controversial plan for some works to a woodland in Altham and I got David Bellamy to appear and speak in defence of the deer. Had I known, I would have asked him again.
In dismissing local complaints about noise, planning officers completely ignored the fact that the 223 Clayton & Rishton objectors were not complaining about perceived noise, but from actual noise generated at the site which because of the amphitheatre nature of the ground would have become a daily occurrence. Next the planning officer rejected any wildlife concerns about the proposal which actually abuts a biological heritage site because, and I quote, "the wildlife corridor in that area is extinct". One of the petitions against the proposal came from the Hyndburn Stepping Out walkers who are a group of people who have had heart operations who walk past the site almost every week as part of their keeping fit programme. They have identified walks of several miles that avoid traffic fumes. And the majority of the objectors cited wildlife concerns. In the planning report it stated that the environmental policies were not saved and therefore could not be taken into consideration. When speaking I said that you are telling me that in the 21st Century, Hyndburn, which is named after a river which was in turn named after a deer, has no nature conservation protection ?
There are a lot of issues need addressing if this committee is to regain public confidence which it has clearly lost. At the very least they should have the Scrutiny Committee look at their procedures.