The saga of Smock Alley came to a close to shouts of “Shame on all of you” from the public gallery last night.
Horsham District Council approved plans for 14 homes on the land in West Chiltington – the fourth attempt by developer Castle Properties to build there.
Villagers set up the Smock Alley Action Group to oppose the plans, and more than 1,100 people signed its petition appealing to the council to protect the “local wildlife sanctuary”.
Yesterday, group member Sharon Davis said she felt “deflated, angry and disillusioned” after the decision, accusing officers of presenting the plans as a “fait accompli”.
Raising her concerns during the meeting, she described the scheme as having been “hastily pushed through, critically flawed and incomplete, with officers pressing for approval”.
The welfare of badgers caused concern, with the partial closure of a sett included in the permission.
The council’s consultant ecologist initially raised concerns about dormice, which are a protected species. But measures such as not removing so much scrub from around the hedgerows and woodland were considered appropriate for the protection of the tiny creatures.
The committee had refused the plans three times, with two appeals by applicant Castle Properties dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate.
A third appeal was withdrawn shortly after the council decided it would not defend it, as officers didn’t think they would win.
The legal advice given to the committee during a behind-closed-doors meeting during which is was decided not to defend the appeal remains confidential.
Philip Circus (Con, West Chiltington, Thakeham and Ashington) has been a vocal opponent of the application.
He raised a number of issues with officers, such as concerns from the senior conservation officer that the harm caused by the development “will not be outweighed by the public benefit” and how the application could have been resubmitted at all, given that an identical to one had already been ‘overwhelmingly’ refused.
Mr Circus said that bringing back the application had “brought the planning system here into disrepute”.
He added: “This should not have come back and the right thing to do is to turn this application down and fight it at appeal if necessary – as we should have done in the first place.”
Alan Manton said there was “clearly a determination to push this through by the officers” – an accusation that was vehemently refuted.
Ruth Fletcher (Lib Dem, Denne) raised the fact that the council does not have the required five-year supply of housing land – it only has 2.9 years worth.
She added: “This means that the hurdles for refusing an application where there are problems – where it conflicts with some policies – are very much higher than they would have been otherwise.”
The site is allocated for development in the emerging Local Plan, with officers describing it as “deliverable and sustainable”.
The application was approved by ten votes to five.
To view it in full, log on to public-access.horsham.gov.uk and search for DC/24/1619.
