At a meeting of the Planning and Regulatory Committee yesterday, the Council accepted the recommendations of the officers at Surrey County Council and recorded a narrow vote in favour of allowing TARMAC planning permission to erect a Dry Silo Mortar plant at North Park Farm in Godstone.
The meeting ended in confusion over the counting of votes.
East Surrey MP Peter Ainsworth, whose letter objecting to the plans was read out at the meeting, said of the decision:
“I am astonished by this. TARMAC’s plant will harm the natural environment and increase local pollution. It seems that the go ahead was only given after a counting error and that the Committee Chairman was allowed to vote twice. Does that seem fair? I wish I had the luxury of having two votes in Parliament!
He went on to say,
“This application has been dogged by unacceptable procedural errors, culminating with total confusion during a key vote in Committee.
“The whole issue now needs to be taken to a higher level. It is time the Local Government Ombudsman and the Government Office for the South East reviewed the way this application has been handled. Local objectors continue to have my full support.”
ENDS
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Notes to Editors:
1. The Government Office of the South East represents central government in the region. They can refer the application to the Secretary of State if they feel there is a case to have the decision overturned
2. The initial vote count was 5 both for and against the application, which led to the Chair breaking the deadlock by voting in favour of the application
- However it emerged that one of the votes against the application had not been counted. After discussions with the legal team it was decide that the vote stood at 6 each, at which point the Chair again broke the deadlock by voting in favour of the application.
- The legal team’s judgement was that although there is a convention that the Chair does not vote in any initial decision, the Constitution itself allows the Chair to vote. As such legally the Chair was able to cast her vote twice.
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