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22 July 2014
Geoff Davies, Chief Executive Officer of Celtique Energie, said:
We are clearly very disappointed with today’s 22nd July decision by West Sussex County Council (WSCC) to refuse our planning application.
On Friday 18th July Celtique submitted a full response to West Sussex County Council in response to an objection from the WSCC Highways Officer received on 2nd July, the first detailed traffic response Celtique have received from WSCC since the submission of our post consultation traffic report in April 2014. This was the only area of objection stated by WSCC officers at that time.
We further understand that the WSCC officers advised the committee that the Highway Department had not had time to study our response but in the face of that advice the Planning Committee resolved that they had sufficient information to reject the application without need for further study of our traffic response. This is despite WSCC issuing a press release yesterday (21st July) stating that they would defer the planning decision until the revised traffic assessment had been studied.
WSCC members also added a last minute additional reason today for refusal stating that the site selection does not present the ‘best’ option within the PEDL licence area with sufficiently good access to a main highway. This runs contrary to a detailed Alternative Site Assessments document submitted as part of our application which outlined our approach to selecting this site, which was deemed to be acceptable by planning officers.
WSCC members have not followed the spirit or the letter of Government policy or good practice in dealing with this planning application. We believe this application was totally compliant, comprehensive and of high quality and would stand up to further scrutiny by the Planning Inspectorate or the Secretary of State in the event of an appeal.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requires local planning authorities to ‘approach decision-taking in a positive way’ (para 186), ‘look for solutions rather than problems’ and ‘work proactively with applicants’ (para 187). WSCC members have not followed the spirit or the letter of Government policy or good practice in dealing with this planning application, which we believe was compliant, comprehensive and of high quality.
We are considering our further options and will make a decision in due course.