Council forced to reconsider Gypsy and Traveller site plans after challenge

Richard Evans, Local Democracy Reporter 

A council’s cabinet is being urged to reconsider its decision to submit a planning application for a permanent Gypsy and Traveller site after a call-in.

At a meeting on 20 October, Denbighshire County Council’s cabinet members agreed to submit a planning application during this autumn for a permanent site at 42 and 42a Marine Road, alongside a separate application for a new access road to the car park of the Caradoc Road flats.

But following the decision, backbench councillors invoked the council’s call-in procedure within the five-working-day window to challenge the Marine Road plans, meaning the decision will be redebated by cabinet next week.

The councillors who backed the call-in are Andrea Tomlin, Elen Heaton, Gareth Sandilands, Jon Harland, Ben Williams, and Carol Holliday.

A letter sent from the six Prestatyn councillors to cabinet states: “We request that this decision be called in for scrutiny due to concerns about whether cabinet had sufficient, accurate and balanced information before approving the progression of a planning application involving approximately £48,000 of expenditure from council reserves.

“We recognise the council’s statutory responsibility to meet the identified need for four permanent Gypsy and Traveller pitches, and the importance of the family’s established connections to Prestatyn. Our concerns relate to the evidence supporting the selection of Marine Road, rather than the need to provide accommodation.”

The six councillors are asking:

• Site selection: Whether the search area was justified, alternative sites were properly weighed, and the assessment separated council-owned land from land actually viable for development.
• Scrutiny transparency: Whether cabinet received a balanced account of previous concerns raised by Communities Scrutiny – and whether those issues were ever resolved.
• Lost housing plans: Whether cabinet was fully briefed on earlier proposals to use the site for council housing, including prior preparatory work and the cost of abandoning those plans.
• Financial assurance: Whether the financial risks of the planning application were properly assessed, and if cabinet had enough evidence to justify its decision.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Tomlin said: “This concerns the vast majority of Prestatyn’s county councillors’ dissatisfaction that officers homed in on this one site from the outset as being the only possible site suitable in Denbighshire.

“We believe that site should already have been categorised as unavailable because it has always been earmarked, and indeed early plans and designs were in place and the roads for it have been part laid as a small council housing development of some 10 to 12 council houses, latterly supported living homes. “That is what Prestatyn was promised by DCC when the former Bodnant Infants’ School was demolished in 2018, a promise that is still outstanding.

“I am therefore pleased that Performance Scrutiny members were in the majority in agreement with me and my call-in co-signatories that a more thorough and comprehensive report should be presented to the cabinet to enable them to make a fully informed decision, as we do not agree that the report that their decision was based on contained enough detail.”

She added: “I hope now that cabinet members agree with that recommendation and, at next week’s cabinet meeting, ask that an enhanced report – including input from myself and my colleague ward member, which we feel is crucial in this matter – be submitted to the cabinet for them to reconsider their decision.

“This is important because the head of service and lead member report authors and all cabinet members were recently appointed to their positions and therefore do not have the benefit of having been involved in the process throughout, as we have been.”

The cabinet meeting will take place at the authority’s Ruthin County Hall HQ on Tuesday 17 November.