Conservative district councillors were pleased to hear that the government Planning Inspector has agreed with them that South Somerset District Council should go back to the drawing board with its Local Plan, with respect not just to the internationally important landscape surrounding East Coker, made famous by T.S. Eliot, but also treasured landscapes around Ilminster, Chard and other market towns and rural centres.
They expressed deep concern however about the waste of money and disarray the Lib Dem led council has caused residents of South Somerset in the local planning system.
District and County councillor Marcus Fysh said “The Council’s so-called evidence for what they have done with the Local Plan has been absolutely shredded by the Government Planning Inspector, to the point where he thinks they should rip it up and start again. By last year the Council had disgracefully spent over £2 million pounds of taxpayers’ money on this failed Plan.
“The Lib Dem council ignored local people’s concerns about bias and incompetence in allocating important landscapes and Grade 1 land with important heritage value for development that would benefit a few big developers, and questions must be asked why. David Laws failed to intervene despite the obvious problems being expressed to him in many hundreds of letters over the last three years.
“Now we have a planning vacuum caused by the Lib Dems, and unnecessary uncertainty for communities across South Somerset.
Whether for Yeovil, Chard, Ilminster, our other market towns or rural centres, the government Planning Inspector has agreed the Council’s plan is unjustified, unsound, and not fit for purpose.”