Anglesey holiday village development goes in front of planning committee as legal battle rages on
Campaigners who are trying to save a nature reserve from being turned into a 500-chalet holiday village have slammed Anglesey County Council planners for pressing ahead with the application whilst a legal battle is ongoing.
Land and Lakes, a company based near Windermere in Cumbria, secured full planning permission for a holiday village with up to 500 chalets at Penrhos, Holyhead in 2016.
The Penrhos coastal nature reserve was listed an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) back in 1967. It’s also a conservation area and parts of it are a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Parts of the ancient woodland date back to the 1700s and is full of a variety of flora, fauna and wildlife. Red squirrels, bats, badgers, foxes and insects are amongst the many native species who live there.
The development threatens 27 acres of native woodland.
Speaking on behalf of the Save Penrhos Coastal Park campaign, local woman Hilary Paterson-Jones told Nation.Cymru: “Today is the day apparently, that they’re going to sign everything off – this shouldn’t be allowed with a legal battle going on.”
Tax payers’ money
Back in January, campaigners managed to slow down the process when their legal team sent Anglesey County Council planners a solicitor’s letter.
It stated that the Land & Lakes planning permission was no longer valid because they hadn’t made a ‘material start’ on the development.
According to Ms Paterson-Jones: “On Monday, the Isle of Anglesey County Council’s legal team sent our solicitor a letter refuting everything. Our legal team emailed them to say: no way, we’ll fight this.
“That letter must have cost them because it’s seven pages long and it’s our money, it’s tax payers money and Penrhos is our green space – it’s bloody ridiculous.”
Legal battle
The legal battle revolves around whether Land & Lakes have made a material start on the development – meaning that the planning permission granted is now in perpetuity.
Mrs Paterson-James said: “It’s like me putting a bag of sand in my back garden and saying I’ve started on the extension. Land & Lakes has removed a piece of carpet from the old cricket pavilion and painted one wall. I’ve been there and I’ve seen it for myself and it certainly doesn’t look like the start of what they call ‘a world class leisure village’ to me.”
Campaigners turned to crowdfunding in order to raise enough money to employ a solicitor, explained Mrs Paterson-Jones.
“Our solicitor has scrutinised those plans and says they have not made a material start.”
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To loose this beautiful, well established, mature woodland to commercial development would be criminal. Penrhos should be allowed to remain intact for greater public benefit. The developers should look elsewhere.
Is it time to scruitinse the list of Councillors on the Planning Committee who pushed this or was the go-ahead given by Officers? It seems very odd to me that, when there is a clear controversy and pending legal action, somebody presses the Start Button. If this involved Westminster Politicians then we would know that it was money talking, but surely not on Ynys Mon?
The start button will be located in either Cheshire or a posh square in central London…
I remember hearing stories of the bad old days of Gyngor Ynys Mon.
Many years ago there was a successful campaign on Ynys Môn against the Council’s ineffectuality by refusal to pay council tax …
Gwarth ar eich pennau, chwi gynghorwyr cibddall Môn, yn gwerthu treftâd eich plant am gibau moch. Pwy a saif yn y bwlch? Pwy a gadwo’r mur? Pwy a ailblanno’r winllan, yr hon a buteiniasoch ar allor eilunaddoliaeth ac y distrywiasoch ei rhagfuriau i lawr? Ffei arnoch.
Another step into turning the island in a theme park for visitors and retirees and where local people have to go off the island to find employment and accommodation or are ghettoised in the large villages and towns as the seaside villages become winter ghost towns. All the while our so-called Councillors ring their hands on the way to the bank
What’s the point of colonialism if you can’t exploit the colony?
To which my answer would be: What’s the point of a local counsel if its members cannot be trusted to act in the interests of the electorate and are prepared to allow irreparable damage to a beautiful part of the island?
From Holiday Camps to Prison Ships enough! Listen to the people not the thirty pieces of silver jangling in your pocket or the keys to a villa somewhere rattling in the bowl…next election not for ages. You can’t get me the council works for me…
Like the majority of councils they think that they have the god given right and what the public whant and need has nothing to do with it they decide what you are getting and that’s it forgetting who they are there to serve Conwy is the worst and most expensive council in UK they do just what they want regardless site’s of nature or special scientific interest rates do not exist for them