“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
--- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I was trying to find the Tambar Park Planning Inspector’s report, and emailed the Department. This was the reply:
I was trying to find the Tambar Park Planning Inspector’s report, and emailed the Department. This was the reply:
“Thank you for your email.
The Inspector could not himself find his reports (there are two) on the
States of Jersey website, and has written about this to the department
concerned. He eventually found them
listed as “ILAP Officer Report Assessment Sheet” under “Other Documents” for application
reference P/2017/1023. “
“Please note that the Inspector’s reports are wrongly
labelled as they are not the same thing as a Planning Officer’s Report and they
are not “assessment sheets”. You may
wish to take this matter up with Chris Jones, the case officer in the planning
department to whom I am copying this email for information”
The mind boggles!!! Douglas Adams was closer to the truth
than one thinks!
So the last report is dated 25/07/2018, and entitled “ILAP
Officer report/assessment sheet Inspector Supplementary Report to Minister
dated May 2018.”
It’s an interesting report, not least because it is a review
after significant changes had been made. The earlier report says basically “back
to the drawing board”, and while the revised one gets passed, it has caveats.
What the report concluded and the Media coverage
In summary, both these proposals would have planning benefits
and disbenefits. The proposals are linked in such ways that they stand or fall together
- it would not make sense, for example, to grant planning permission for the
proposed dwelling on the east site, which if implemented would take away the
parking for the Tamba Park tourist attraction, unless the replacement car park
were to be provided on the west site. Nor would it be sensible to permit the proposed
holiday village and enlarged parking and other facilities for Tamba Park on the
west site whilst leaving the existing car park off La Rue des Varvots on the east
site.
The decision whether or not to grant planning permissions
depends on the weight put on various aspects. The cases are more evenly balanced
than has been claimed for the applicant, and than might be suggested by the
relative volume of evidence or submissions presented by the two main parties;
but in my judgment the benefits of the proposals - including removing the
redundant glasshouses, restoring a substantial part of the land to a condition
suitable for agricultural use, helping the tourism-related economy, taking
traffic away from La Rue des Varvots and enabling improvements to be made to
local drainage – carry considerable weight. on balance, I judge that the public
interest planning gains would be sufficient to overcome the objections to the
proposals, including the normal presumption against most forms of urban
development in the Green Zone.
It should be noted that while there is building on the green
zone, with the removal of glasshouses, there is also “restoring a substantial
part of the land to a condition suitable for agricultural use”, so that the
merits of the case are not about taking land from the Green Zone, but also
about putting land into the Green Zone.
This is something which is not apparent in the media summary,
which is why I wanted to see the full report. It also comes in the
recommendations further down: “the removal of existing glasshouses, the
restoration of land for potential open-field agricultural use”. That must have
weighted as significant, but the fact that it is only “potential” may have one
factor in tipping the balance when John Young reviewed the plans. It is not an
actual trade off, only a potential one.
It is also worth noting that while the Inspector comes down
in favour, he also regards the matter as “evenly balanced”. This is also not a
case of an Inspector saying one thing, and the Planning Minister, Deputy John
Young, just ignoring what he has to say.
So while the media were right to report that the Minister
turned down the report, the way in which they did so is misleading.
Here, for example is one account from ITV News:
The Inspector cited several pros and cons and considered
that, on balance, "the public interest planning gains were enough to
overcome the concerns, including the fact that Tamba Park is in the Green Zone,
where there is a general presumption against development". However, the Environment Minister did not
agree and refused the plans.
And the JEP says even more forcefully:
The Planning Minister announced he had refused the
application for 27 self-catering units on the tourism site, based in St
Lawrence – despite an independent planning inspector recommending it be given
the green light.
Given those reports, the average reader would be inclined to
ask: what is the point of having a Planning Inspector if the Minister can
ignore his counsel. That, of course, only makes sense if all you have is the
media reports, especially that of the JEP.
In fact the very fact that the Inspector says the decision
is “evenly balanced” means that the Planning Minister certainly had a right to
review the plan and could well have come to a different decision. An evenly or finely balanced decision is one in which
the arguments for and against it were of almost equal merit, and clearly how
one weighs up priorities may differ in such circumstances.
And finally, I’m passing no judgement on the merits or
otherwise of the site. All I am trying to do is dig down and clarify the matters
at hand in the differing decisions of Inspector and Minister.
1 comment:
The inability to successfully search for a particular planning application of interest is absolutely appalling and brings the whole planning process into disrepute.
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