A great start to 2024, but a long drawn out saga, as Provectus Developments has been granted another planning consent for 44 houses in Minster, Kent. This is the culmination of 3 years of working with the LPA to deliver a much needed housing site. On what should have been a straightforward application, the timescale for this project has been nothing short of shocking.
Unfortunately, even with the LPA’s support and an extremely positive officers report to planning committee, the application was refused by members in August 2022 within the first 5 minutes of the meeting. It then took another 30 minutes for a reason for refusal to be put forward.
The Appeal was made in October 2022 for a Hearing, but we were subsequently downgraded to a written representation. A start date of 6 March 2023, with an end date of 24 April was communicated to us. Unfortunately, the LPA did not abide with these timescales and the procedure stretched into May 2023.
The Inspector visited the site on 9 October 2023 and more fool us we expected a decision within 2- 3 weeks! Our next contact with the Inspectorate was on the 21 November 2023, informing us that they had accepted a third party representation from an adjoining residential owner regarding historical emails between the Highway Agency and the LPA. We obviously complained, but were informed “The inspector has requested for comments in line with guidance within 9.4.8.3 of the Procedural Guide to Planning Appeals which covers circumstances where late evidence may be admitted. In this case the Inspector made the decision to accept and seek comments to cover the possibility that those comments related to a change of circumstance to matters surrounding the appeal”.
We made our representation and again expected a decision notice to be issued, but then Gove intervened with the revised NPPF, so on 22 December 2023 we were asked to comment and consider whether the revised Framework had relevance to our case.
We received the decision notice on 18 January 2024 with the Appeal granted and a full costs award!