Comment: Getting a grip, but questions to answer

There was much to applaud at last Monday’s Parish Council meeting. Disaster had been averted with the “faulty” planning pre-application being “paused”. The Strategy Working Group has been tasked with rewriting it: it will cover only the 25 properties, located at the southern end of the plot near Eastman’s Field. When it’s finished villagers will be able to see it.

The cherry on the cake is that Cllr David Hall will be drafting terms of reference for a new CPC sub-committee. It will oversee plans for what looks like 15 properties which will be outside the Land Trust. Its business will be conducted through public meetings, with agendas, minutes and papers on the CPC website. In other words, everything the SWG was not.

But there was plentiful evidence during last Monday’s meeting that there are still difficult questions that will have to be answered.

For a start, how could the three councillors who might directly gain a personal benefit from the project be the only members of the Parish Council overseeing the submission of the pre-application?

Second, how can they not recuse themselves from future decisions within the project?

And third, and perhaps the most important of all: how did the pre-application become “faulty”, exactly? Who did what, and when? The explanation so far is that one of James Painter’s “planning team” added a document to the application which changed the focus of the entire thing. Why indeed did Mr Painter submit the pre-app and not the Parish Council? He even had to pay the fee for it, although councillors have agreed to reimburse him.

One striking moment last Monday was when the Chair of the Parish Council bemoaned the fact that “someone on the SWG leaked the pre-app”, as he glared at a fellow councillor. Although fanciful, it seemed at that moment that there might have been another chain of events which led us to where we are. If there is, the village must be told.