Persimmon permission - a nod and a wink?

This week's Herald puts the spotlight yet again on Carmarthenshire's notorious planning 'process'. One of the articles concerns a planning application for 91 homes in Hendy, near Llanelli. With the planning application not yet decided, locals were shocked a couple of weeks ago when Persimmon Homes brought in the bulldozers, clearing the ground, felling trees and preparing the road entrance.

By anyone's imagination the works were over and above anything allowed under permitted development. Others claimed to have seen the 'houses' advertised on the Persimmon website.
Some wondered, with the recent approval of the council leader's barn conversion, if planning permission, prior to starting work, is still a requirement in Carmarthenshire....
The outcry from local residents, some of whom were now dealing with water run-off into their properties prompted a public meeting held last week. Unfortunately Persimmon threatened to walk out of the meeting if the Herald and the BBC filmed it, but luckily, careful notes were taken. No one was present from the planning department although the local councillor, who has, rather late in the day, asked for it to go to the planning committee, was present.

Image via Hidden Carmarthenshire and the Llanelli Herald - for video click here

What transpired during the meeting was that Persimmon claimed to have been given the nod from planning officers that planning consent was a done deal, just a matter of signing off the delegated approval.

The Persimmon representative said;
"We had been promised delegated approval for several weeks leading up to this. From our perspective, we thought that planning consent had been approved...As far as we were concerned we were going to get planning consent for that site.."

They also claimed that this 'preparatory work' was carried out with the full knowledge of the council. Interestingly, the council do not actually contradict this statement but since, and only since, the outcry first reached the press have the council told Persimmon to cease the work, for now.

I wouldn't like to hazard a guess how Persimmon were promised planning approval as they claim, but this is big business, courted by County Hall, and I am certain they can recognising a nod and a wink when they see one.

Whether or not this application makes it to the wonderful planning committee remains to be seen and of course, that will be another story...

I'm not sure how much of a shambles the Carmarthenshire public are supposed to tolerate, at some point maybe the Welsh Government will decide that enough's enough and finally put the planning department, and it's committee, into special measures...no matter how much the chief executive stamps his feet.

Also in the Herald is another excellent Cadno piece which reflects on the events above, the latest episode in the long running comedy show, Meryl and Mark's Wild West World of Planning.

Carmarthenshire Herald