Stoborough homes plan to be considered for second time

This time it will mean a controversial application for 15 homes at Stoborough having to be considered for a second time.

As in previous cases not everyone who should have been notified was told that the meeting, held on July 28th, was taking place.

There had been considerable opposition to the application from residents in and around Stoborough and from the parish council but in the end the committee approved the application for a site off West Lane.

The item will now be re-considered at an eastern area planning committee on Wednesday August 25th at 10am. The meeting will be available online.

Papers with the agenda for that meeting say: “Due to unforeseen technical issues which meant letters e-mailed to consultees in advance of the 28th July 2021 Eastern Planning Committee meeting had not been sent, officers (in consultation with the Eastern Planning Committee chairman) have made the decision to return this application to the Eastern Planning Committee for consideration. The officer report remains unaltered.”

The same ‘technical difficulties’ earlier in the month led to the cancellation of a northern area planning committee with just three hours’ notice.

That meeting had been due to discuss two applications amounting to almost 200 homes in the Gillingham area,  which will now be decided next Tuesday, August 24th.

Said a council spokesman at the time: “It had come to light that there was a technical problem with the notifications that were sent out to interested parties. These were showing up as having been sent but we are aware that people have not received them, so we are postponing the items to the next meeting so that we can sort the issue and ensure people are informed about the meeting with sufficient notice.”

The northern area planning meeting was the third to be cancelled this month. Prior to that the Corporate Parenting board was called off, again at short notice, after a number of people apologised for not being able to attend.