In a surprising decision last week, Coventry’s Planning Committee shot a huge hole in the Council’s own Climate Change policy.
As previously reported, the City Council is promoting a new solar farm in the north of the city in the vicinity of Lenton’s Lane. The proposal is part of the Council’s Climate Change Strategy, which is seeking to create a zero-carbon city.
Council planning officers had recommended that the application should be approved, but the councillors voted 3 – 2 to refuse the application. The Chairman, Cllr Lindsley Harvard, a councillor for the Longford Ward where the solar farm was to be located, led the voting against the officers’ recommendation.
It was notable that fewer than half of the councillors on Planning Committee attended the meeting. Of the twelve councillors on the committee only five bothered to turn up for the meeting. It is disappointing that our representatives show so little commitment to our city’s future.
At the meeting, council officers struggled to identify the reasons for refusal of the planning application, but eventually came up with:
- The development is in the Green Belt
- The development is close to houses
- The development will affect the tenant farmer’s livelihood.
The council can now look forward to the embarrassment of appealing against the decision of its own Planning Committee and council officers will need to become schizophrenic putting forward both sides of the argument.
One thing that we can be sure of is that the council will not be seeking costs against the council for ignoring legal advice. This compares with the hundreds of thousands of pounds they had to pay when they refused permission for the development of Abbott’s Park against the advice of their officers. In that case the Planning Inspector found against the council and awarded what is believed to be around a quarter of a million pounds in costs.
Over the past year the Council has taken a big knock against its claim to be a green council that supports brownfield development over greenfield. Not only did it turn down the Abbott’s Park brownfield development, it permitted the development of housing on Coundon Wedge and now turns down its own flagship environmental project.
It might be time for the Council leadership to focus on the membership, leadership and commitment of its Planning Committee.