NO HEARING, NO PUBLIC PLATFORM FOR LOCAL VOICES
CA Europe Operating Company has taken its applications for town houses and student housing at 72–4 Eyre Place direct to the Scottish Government (22/03833/FUL; 22/03834/FUL).
The Development Management Sub-Committee hearing agreed on 11 January will not now take place.
CA Europe has appealed because of the Council’s non-determination of the case within the statutory timescale required. The two relevant applications were submitted to the local authority at the end of July 2022, and were scheduled for determination by 30 September.
The merits of the proposal will now be decided upon instead by a Reporter (a lawyer specialising in planning cases) appointed by Scottish Ministers. The outcome will be based on strict assessment of the Council’s policies and guidance (PPA-230-2409; PPA-230-2409). Material objections already made by members of the public will still form part of the Reporter's considerations.
This apparent circumvention of local democracy – scrutiny in the full light of day – is in fact perfectly legal. It is an option designed to prevent the Planning system from clogging up due to bureaucratic or obstructive delays.
But when proposals are complicated, or muddled by a developer's inaccurate and/or incomplete compilation, and/or when Planning departments are under-resourced, procedural delays are hard to avoid.
Readers may recall the last high-profile occasion when a case in Broughton was determined along similar lines: the creation of flats at 154 McDonald Road overlooking the adjacent primary-school playground in March 2014.
The latest surprising turn of events may not change the final outcome of the application. If the developer's arguments have been sound in Planning terms from the start, we might eventually have arrived at this same point by a different route … but arrive we certainly would.
However, given the strength and effective mobilisation of local feeling about the Eyre Place proposals, this appeal seems certain to once again undermine public perceptions about the fairness of the system and the capacity of ordinary people to express their opinions and collective political will within it.
[Further reaction to this report in Issue 326, published on 1 Mar.]
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