Early last year Wren Homes made a planning application to demolish two large detached houses in Church Lane, Oxted and replace them with 19 flats. Tandridge District Council turned that application down on a number of grounds including because the development did not include any affordable housing, and that the £250,000 compensation offered as an alternative was inadequate. Wren Homes appealed and that appeal was heard last November. They lost but only on the question of the amount of compensation in place of affordable housing. They have now submitted a revised application where they have offered to pay a higher level of compensation and given the previous appeal decision the revised recommendation to members of the development control committee is to accept the application.
This is a matter of intense controversy in Oxted, so I thought I would set out my position.
In the area of planning I believe that the best decisions are taken by local people for local people. My view is that the policy of this current Government to take power from elected representatives to decide what development is suitable in a particular location and give it to planning inspectors based hundreds of miles away is fundamentally undemocratic. Decisions by the inspectorate should be based on errors made by the council not because an individual inspector's views of the merits of the case are different . However that is the system we have been given and as councillors we have limited powers to challenge central government's policies. While I agree there are instances when it might be right for the Council to take a decision which is likely to fail at appeal the hurdle must be set quite high. I do not want to prejudge the decision of the development control committee but appealing a decision where the inspectorate appears to have given a clear statement is likely to both fail and involve a costs award against the council.
