Challenge to Brent Council following Barham Park decision: What is the planning policy, relevant to application 22/4128, which dictates that if an application would not cause harm, that overrides policies such as those in the Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan?

 

Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan policy LGS1

 

 Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan policy BP1

 

 

Following yesterday's Planning Committee meeting Philip Grant has sent the following letter to Gerry Ansell, Brent Council's Head of Planning. (Illustrations are for the benefit of readers amd were not sent to Mr Ansell)

 

Dear Mr Ansell,

I watched and listened to yesterday evening's Planning Committee meeting when application 22/4128 was considered, and there was an important planning policy point which was not explained. I would ask that you do not issue a consent letter on this application until this matter has been resolved.

I will set that point out, in bold type, below, and would ask you to reply to it promptly, please, with copies to the Chair of the Planning Committee, the councillors who are probably as puzzled by this issue as I am, and the Chair of the Sudbury Town Residents' Association.

Cllr. Dixon and several other committee members asked Officers for clarification over the relative importance of the Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan policies in considering the application.

 

 

 Slide of site in Barham park displayed at yesterday's Planning Committee Meeting

 

Paragraph 30 of the National Policy Framework on Neighbourhood Plans

It was clear that Officers accepted that the application site was within the Barham Park Local Green Space, so that the Neighbourhood Plan policies LGS1, LGS2 and BP1 applied. Several other more general Local Plan policies were also relevant.

No answer appeared to be given, by either of the Planning Officers who spoke at the meeting, to the question raised over whether policy BP1 took precedence over the more general policies. However, at the end of a long answer by your Development Management Manager he appeared to state that what mattered, more than all of those policies, was that the application would not cause harm.

Planning applications have to be determined 'in accordance with the relevant planning national, strategic, local and neighbourhood policy framework.'


What is the planning policy, relevant to application 22/4128, which dictates that if an application would not cause harm, that overrides policies such as those in the Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan? 

Please provide the full text of that policy, as well as its source and policy number, in reply to this email. Thank you. Best wishes,

Philip Grant

 

Philip adds for Wembley Matters readers:

 

 

NOTE: '...The councillors who are probably as puzzled by this issue as I am', who I copied my email to, were the two Sudbury Ward councillors, Paul Lorber (Lib Dem) and Teo Benea (Labour), who spoke against the application at the meeting, Ketan Sheth (Wembley Central, Labour) the Ward councillor whose written statement against the application was read out at the meeting, and Michael Maurice (Kenton, Conservative) who as a member of the Planning Committee clearly understood the arguments involved over planning policy, and voted against the application mainly on the grounds that it went against Neighbourhood Plan policy BP1 (Above image). 

There was three-way cross-party support that the Sudbury Town Neighbourhood Plan and its policy BP1 should be upheld, yet this did not affect the votes of the seven Labour members of the Planning Committee.

 

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