The council planners have written a formal letter to the developers and posted it on the council’s planning portal. To make it easier to access (because the portal is a little unreliable) we have copied it here for you to download (click on the image on the right).

Formal letter from the planners to the developers complaining about the quality of information in the application. Click image to download

One of the key messages from this letter is that almost all the past claims by the developer that they have reached agreement over their financial case for “enabling development” are simply not true. They have not submitted (or received approval for) a financial appraisal and they have not calculated and submitted a “conservation deficit” calculation, which is the critical calculation for enabling development.

There has also not been nearly enough information submitted about how flooding will be prevented (such as the location of the drainage required). The pictures of views from within and towards the site are clearly not provided to the standards required by the council, contrary to what the developers are claiming. Finally, the impact on wildlife could be very serious and nothing has been proposed to “mitigate” these impacts.

Also, the Environmental Statement (which is a very large part of the application) is considered “not competent”. How, after over 18 months, huge amounts of public consultation and, we are told, over £1m spent, has such an incomplete and inaccurate planning application been submitted by Mountgrange and Napier?