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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT BY DEPUTY J.H. YOUNG OF ST. BRELADE
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 15th JANUARY 2013
Question
Will the Minister provide the Assembly with full details of the procedures he and Planning Officers followed after receiving the Planning Inspector's report of the public inquiry for Plémont Bay Holiday Village on 6th November 2012 and before 14th November 2012, when he announced his decision to approve the application and, in particular will he advise -
- whether a draft report had previously been submitted and comments offered to the Inspector and, if so, would he disclose those comments;
- whether any questions or requests for clarification were raised with the Inspector on the reports contents and, if so, provide details of the matters queried and the replies received;
- whether he sought and considered the advice of his planning officers or third parties on the principle and practice of enabling development' in the UK and Jersey, the application of policy ERE 3 and the mandatory conditions applying to that policy and, if so, provide details; and,
- whether he considered the applicant's policy arguments or absence of them, for proposing enabling development and the use of policy ERE 3?
Answer
I received the Inspector's report on 6th November 2012. Having carefully considered the content of the report, I called a meeting with Department officers on 14th November 2012, where all aspects of the application were discussed. I made my decision the same day.
In answer to the specific points raised by the Deputy :
- The Director of Development Control was sent a draft copy of the report on 30th October 2012, with a request from the Inspector that it be checked for factual accuracy. The Director was on leave all that week and so the Inspector forwarded the draft copy to the Chief Executive on 31st October 2012. The Chief Executive checked the report and raised no queries with the Inspector, nor did he make any comment or alteration.
- Subsequently, on 5th November 2012, the Inspector sent a final draft to the Director of Development Control, who passed the matter on to the Senior Planner. The Senior Planner asked for one alteration to the appendix (to reflect the fact that he had been present at the Inspector's site visit). This was the only alteration to the Inspector's report requested by the Department. As Minister, I did not receive any versions of the draft report.
- When arriving at my decision on the planning application, I made it clear to all parties that I had taken into account all of the material considerations which were relevant to the case. Principal amongst these were the policies of the 2011 Island Plan. I do not consider that it is appropriate to isolate any particular policy considerations for examination within this Assembly, as my decision was based upon an overarching assessment of the Plan as a whole.
- See answer to part (c) above.