As you will have seen / heard the outline planning approval for the market site has been approved by West Devon Borough Council Planning committee. Hatherleigh Town Council agreed with the approval and read out the attached statement. The reasons behind this were two fold – a lot of the issues we originally had with the outline plans have been met to some extent and secondly to enable us and West Devon Borough Council Planning Department to keep some control on the plans / design.
We have already negotiated a lower number of houses (although we would like to see it reduced further possibly through a change in housing mix), a rear entrance for lorries delivering to Cornwall Farmers, the addition of a fur & feather building and more parking (although again we are working to getting this increased further).
There was a very real risk (and it was more a certainty) that the consultants would appeal a non-approval decision. If this had happened then the Inspectorate (from past experiences) would grant the appeal, and the things we had gained could easily have been taken away from us.
As it stands we have made it clear to both the consultants and West Devon Borough Council Planning Department that we must be heavily involved in the reserved matters before it goes to detailed planning. This cooperation from them would not have happened if it had gone to appeal.
The working party (meeting) that we had with the consultants and West Devon Borough Council Planning Department on the 21st Jan was to thrash out the issues that we and WDBC had with the plan as it was then – hence the positive additions to the plans.
Hatherleigh Market Officers Report on planning recommendations mktofficersreport