Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council has been heavily censured by the Local Government Ombudsman over the way it dealt with proposals to demolish a listed Victorian schoolroom and build new houses on the site in a conservation area, noting also the fact that the sub-committee was not informed of the comments of the council’s own conservation specialists.
The watchdog found serious errors and omissions in the officer’s report to the council’s planning sub-committee. The applicants had argued that demolishing the schoolroom and selling the site with planning permission would ‘enable’ the associated listed chapel to be repaired and refurbished. However, the officer who dealt with the case failed to apply any of the tests required by English Heritage for such “enabling” development.
The watchdog’s report pointed out that the members weren’t informed that the law required them to have special regard to preserving the listed schoolroom. The councillors were also not told that national planning guidance required a general presumption in favour of preserving listed buildings or that there were specific tests which should be applied before consent for demolishing the schoolroom. In addition the sub-committee was not informed of the comments of the council’s own conservation specialists.
The watchdog’s report highlighted that of 32 photographs shown to the sub-committee to illustrate the dilapidated condition of the schoolroom, no fewer than 24 of them were of a different building. The Ombudsman concluded: “The failure to give clear, comprehensible professional views and assessments of the two applications was maladministration.”
The ombudsman argued that the council’s maladministration caused injustice to the people who complained. The injustice was the potential loss of part of their area’s built heritage that contributes to the setting of the distinctive, listed chapel and the general character of the conservation area.
The watchdog recommended that the council should remedy the injustice by seeking to negotiate for the permissions to be relinquished in favour of a new scheme, for which it would meet reasonable design costs and planning application fees. If those negotiations failed, the council should consider revoking the permissions after considering a full report on all the relevant issues, said the Ombudsman.
A spokesman for the council said: “We accept the Ombudsman’s findings and, since this application was handled three years ago, we have made changes to some of our planning processes. Ways of dealing with planning applications and consents which relate to the area’s heritage have been tightened up. We also have more effective management of case officers and have strengthened our links with partners such as English Heritage.”
LINK to Planning Portal News Item
LINK to LGO News Item
Download LGO Report HERE
