Council takes legal action to cancel planning permission blunder
LEGAL action is being taken by New Forest District Council to block a development that was given planning permission by mistake.
The authority is pursuing a judicial review to cancel its own decision, which was made in January against its own rules, to allow a chalet bungalow in Milford.
The proposal was by local builder Jeremy Stockwell for the garden of Gunfield, in Shorefield Crescent. It was objected to by the parish council as “unneighbourly overdevelopment”.
Because that view went against the advice of the planning officer handling the case, the matter should have been referred to the district planning committee – but was instead given the go-ahead anyway.
Mr Stockwell told the A&T he had gone ahead and bought the site after receiving permission and could have started construction by now.
He said: “I’m very disappointed. I do not know how they could possibly make this mistake. Who signed it off? If they had not made the mistake it would have gone to committee and would probably have been approved by now.”
He said he has submitted a new application, with NFDC paying his fees, so that if the wrongly issued permission is quashed, he can proceed with an identical plan via the correct process.
The issue is one of the first things to land in the in-tray of NFDC’s new chief planning officer, Claire Upton-Brown.
She has been appointed after her predecessor Flo Churchill was given a pay-out and left without explanation in 2017 after just six months in the role.
In a letter to the parish council, senior planning officer David Groom blamed a "procedural error" for the decision which, by law, still stands.
On Monday night, a full meeting of NFDC agreed without debate to launch a judicial review to try to revoke the ruling.
A summary said the applicant and site owner had refused NFDC’s request to sign a legal agreement not to go ahead with the scheme.
It said: “The only other course of action open to the council was to institute a judicial review, the effect of which would be to quash the permission.”
Cllr Sue Whitlock, chair of the parish council’s planning committee which opposed the scheme, said members would maintain their objection to a new application for the bungalow which she described as “overdevelopment”.
She said: “In this instance it’s gone wonky. I feel the district and parish council have a pretty good relationship and they do take into account what we say.
“Mistakes happen and something has gone wrong in this instance and I hope it gets remedied.”
The action is being lodged by NFDC in the name of Cllr Bill Andrews, who is chair of the planning committee.
Members agreed at the meeting on Monday to indemnify him against any costs that might be made against him as a result of the court case.
An NFDC spokesperson said “no specific” figure has been set aside to spend on the legal action.
She said: “The council has undertaken an initial review as to how the error occurred but the matter remains open and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Cllr Andrews, member for Dibden and Hythe East, declined to comment in detail but told the A&T the judicial review was “a very simple and quick thing to do”.
A planning report showed a previous application for a house on the site was refused by NFDC in February 2018 and subsequently dismissed on appeal eight months later in October.
However, it noted that the district council’s reason for refusal – that the bungalow would harm the local character – was not accepted by the planning inspector whose decision against the plan was based on environmental mitigation measures.
When an identical application was immediately resubmitted, officers concluded that because the inspector had rejected their original reason, this time it would have to be allowed but with an environmental condition banning construction until mitigation was agreed.
Three people had objected to the bungalow proposal, warning it was too close to a "very dangerous" junction, was out of keeping, and would invade neighbours’ privacy.
