Banbury area protesters claim breakthrough in Cherwell planning procedure

Roger Corke is one of many who protested over plans for a large home overlooking Hornton village.

“When the application was first proposed, dozens of people wrote to Cherwell's planning department to object. As a result, Cherwell was duty bound to inform each of those objectors - including me - that the proposal was contentious enough to go to the planning committee and what the date of the meeting was,” he said.

"But what Cherwell didn't tell us in those letters is what the recommendation of the planning officer was.

“When I received my letter, I immediately wrote to the planning officer to ask what his recommendation was going to be. He didn't reply but we discovered - because we know our way round the Cherwell planning portal - that he was going to recommend that the proposal be accepted

"Around 30 Hornton residents swung into action and wrote new letters, once again objecting to the proposal and the officer's recommendation. He had not told us that in the letters sent out. I therefore initiated a formal complaint,” said Mr Corke.

"The key point was his letter didn't contain details of what he was recommending to committee and where to find out more details on the planning portal. After all, we folk in Hornton know our way round the portal but most people wouldn't know where to start.

“And I suggested that, in future, when the council wrote to interested parties in a planning dispute to inform them when it would be discussed by the committee, details of what the planning officer's recommendation should be included in the letter, plus URL details of where to find this information on the Cherwell planning portal.”

Mr Corke said his first complaint was not accepted by the senior manager of planning and he appealed.

"When I appealed, this manager’s boss recommended that in future people should be told. So details of the recommendation and where to find details on the planning portal will be included in all letters sent out by planning officers to interested parties.

"A significant amount of daylight will therefore be shone on the labyrinthine planning process and people can find out in good time what the officers, whose wages they pay, are recommending in planning applications that affect them.

“In the end, Cherwell's planning committee voted against the proposal because it was completely against the council's own policies of not building on a greenfield site in a village like Hornton,” said Mr Corke.

A council spokesman said: “We currently write to people who have lodged comments on planning applications to let them know them if the matter is going to be heard at planning committee.

"In response to this resident’s feedback we will update the template letter used for this notification to include the recommendation and a link to the report on our website.

"This change will involve work with an external software provider so we do not yet have a date for when the new letters will be ready for use. Around 90 per cent of applications are dealt with under delegated powers and this change will not affect those.”