Comment: Why the pre-app had to be paused

A Freedom of Information request made by chilbolton.news to Chilbolton Parish Council has cast more light on why their planning pre-application to TVBC had to be paused.

The pre-app was lodged with Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC) planning department at the end of January. At the CPC’s February meeting it emerged that only three councillors had been involved in the preparation of the documents and they had done that in conjunction with James Painter, the owner of the land on which they hoped to build.

To find out more, chilbolton.news made a Freedom of Information request to the Parish Council to see the pre-app. Their response was to refuse our request because:

The pre-planning application documents you requested were provided to the Council from another person and the disclosure of this information would constitute a breach of confidence.

When we asked whether the entirety of the pre-application had been provided “by another person”, the Parish Council confirmed that

all the pre-application documents submitted to Test Valley Borough Council were provided by another person

What seems then to have happened then is that all of the documents in the pre-app pack were prepared by James Painter and his planning advisors. Although it was reviewed and approved by three councillors, technically the entire pre-app belongs to Mr Painter.

This is what was behind the rather cryptic message in the Parish Council statement when the pre-app was paused, that “the Pre-App … was not a public document”.

Another question arises, though. Cllr Ewer said back in December that the Strategy Working Group had spent “thousands of hours” developing their ideas. Why wasn’t the bulk of the pre-application comprised of output from the SWG?