Any statements and/or petitions from the public under Standing Order 32 will be made or presented at the meeting.
Minutes:
Dr Goodhead made a statement in respect of report 200/05 – Enforcement Programme. He explained that he had had legal advice suggesting that he should first see through all of the Council’s procedures before recourse through other channels. He referred to the ongoing tensions suffered for the past 13 months advising that there were many instances of wrong information from the applicants and prevarication and “whitewashing” by the Council’s enforcement officers who he thought had tended to deny the facts and support the applicant. He explained that the Officers had given misleading summaries to Members as part of their decision making. He suggested that the applicants and the enforcement officers had frustrated an honest approach to decision making. He explained that if the current house and garage had been presented to the Council they would have been refused. He commented that with the house volume increased by much greater than 30% in the Green Belt, it would have been incumbent on the Council to refuse it. He advised that the Council had approved the newly built house with a volume increase of some 37% over the original bungalow. He advised that the Officers had avoided giving an explicit figure, although he claimed they had accepted that the volume increase was well over the limit. Dr Goodhead explained that he was now aware that it was not within the Council’s remit to exceed the 30% or even the 33% margin without special procedures. He referred to a long series of well documented deviations from proper procedures which would need to be reviewed. He reported that the Committee had been misled in several ways at its meeting in October when the garage had been considered. He explained that the report now before the meeting identified one of these. He commented that the applicant had submitted visibly incorrect drawings, claiming that the garage had been built 32.5cm higher than the plans approved in July. He explained that the Officers had endorsed this and had advised the Committee that the height of the garage had increased. He reported that Members had accepted the Officer’s statements. However, subsequently he had challenged the figures and the Officers had now admitted as set out in the report that the garage was even higher.
Dr Goodhead commented that the Committee had been misled at its meeting in October when the applicant had claimed late discovery that a higher roof was needed to fit an entrance door to the first floor room. He claimed that this was not a late discovery, as in July the applicant had assembled the roof struts for the taller roof. Furthermore, measurements on the original plans had indicated that there was no need to raise the roof to fit in a normal sized door and ceiling, as there was adequate room. Dr Goodhead explained that he had written to the Officers asking them to confirm this but a response had yet to be received.
Dr Goodhead questioned why there appeared to be so much deception. He suggested that the applicants might have always intended to build a larger first floor room above the garage but had not wished to declare it. He suggested that truthfulness had not been a characteristic of this application from the beginning, with false information from the applicants and negligence by the Officers. He commented that the proper planning process had been distorted resulting in considerable inconvenience and expense.
The Chair thanked Dr Goodhead for his statement advising that the Committee would have regard to it when considering report 200/05 (Minute DC.223 refers).