Whispered comments by council officers ‘led to change in by-pass decision’

Martin Shipton

Concerns have been raised about the way a private housing developer had an obligation to build a village by-pass modified following the intervention of council officers at a planning meeting.

Bridgend councillors changed their position on how many homes would have to be built before the developer had to build a by-pass at the nearby village of Tondu following pressure from officers in the form of whispered comments.

In 2018 outline planning permission was granted for a development of up to 450 homes on land located off Maesteg Road, Tondu. As part of a community benefit programme, the developer, Llanmoor Homes, was required to build a link road / by-pass.

Phasing

At the time permission was granted, The applicant, Llanmoor proposed a phasing of the development so that 250 homes could be built and occupied prior to the provision of the highway improvement scheme which included the link road.

However, the consultants that reviewed the Transport Assessment on behalf of the council advised that building 250 homes together with a scheme to develop a larger foodstore on the site, would result in the existing junction being over capacity. The council’s consultants therefore proposed that 135 dwellings could be provided without the link road and other improvement works being implemented.

It was acknowledged in the report presented to the council’s development control committee that the existing highway network in the vicinity of the site suffered from congestion at peak times, but it was considered that the new link road and junction changes would improve the highway network and provide sufficient mitigation for the development.

Mitigation work

Condition 30 of the outline consent therefore required the highway mitigation work including the link road to be completed prior to the occupation of the 136th home on the site.

This week, however, Llanmoor asked the committee to vary the wording of Condition 30 to allow up to 235 dwellings to be occupied prior to the completion of the highway mitigation works.

A consultancy working for Llanmoor submitted a report suggesting that traffic had not increased in line with expectations, and that it would be reasonable to delay building the link road until more homes had been built and occupied.

A report to the development control committee this week said that the 235th home was likely to be occupied in the summer of 2027. It recommended that the change should be allowed.

However, members of the committee wanted further evidence about the level of traffic in the area, and were about to pass a motion deferring a decision until such evidence was available.

At this point, a recording of the meeting picked up whispered comments made by officers.

Head of planning Jonathan Parsons could be heard saying: “I’m not happy about this, Chair”, to committee Chair Cllr Richard Granville.

A legal officer then whispered: “Should I say about the council?”, to which Cllr Granville said: “Yes, yes.”

The legal officer then said: “Check with Jonathan.”

Cllr Granville said: “Shall we say that it’s non-determination as well and we could be done for this?”, and Mr Parsons said: “Yeah, yeah.”

After a talk from the legal officer, the councillors then backed down, and said that if five days of traffic monitoring confirmed the original finding from a single day’s monitoring that there had been no significant increase in vehicles, officers would be given the power to change the planning condition in line with the developer’s wishes, without waiting for another committee meeting.

‘Held to account’

A political source who watched the meeting on Thursday August 21 said: “Residents are increasingly concerned that developers are not being properly held to account when they fail to adhere to planning conditions.

“This week’s meeting will only strengthen this viewpoint.

“I am particularly alarmed at what appears to be an instance of officers influencing democratic process.

“Having read that Llanmoor Homes are now the development partner for 850 homes at Island Farm, I am concerned that the decision today could result in priorities shifting to this development. Given my experience of housing developers in the borough, it would not surprise me if Llanmoor, as a medium sized developer, having just won this new development, would want to build the additional 100 houses in Tondu, without having to build a costly bypass, to increase their profit in order to generate the ability to borrow more to fund the island farm build.

“I’m extremely worried that they will then decide that they’ll prioritise Island farm over Tondu because there’s more profit there and that there will be significant delay in the Tondu bypass, while their focus is elsewhere, or that it might be that they never build more than 350 houses in Tondu because they’re profiting elsewhere. If they don’t build more houses they don’t need to build the road and they’re not in breach of planning either.

“I’m even more alarmed that the decision making of such a significant and contentious application has been left for officers to determine under delegated authority. It would suggest to anyone watching the meeting that a deal has been done with the developer.”