Acting Deemster Sullivan has reserved her judgment in the case involving the plans to develop land at Crossag Farm in Ballasalla.
J G Kelly and Jackson Homes (Southern) are attempting to have quashed a refusal decision, issued by the Council of Ministers, on a planning application by the Department of Local Government & the Environment to build 257 dwellings. They want the court to refer the matter back to COMIN for a fresh decision.
During the three day hearing (2nd Dec - 5th Dec) Mr. Coleman, appearing for the petitioners, argued that, essentially, the COMIN had not taken all the matters they should have considered into account when making their decision.
Mr. Coleman put it to the court that the COMIN had felt restrained by the judgment handed down in the Manx National Heritage case v DLGE - which had ruled the Minister was only allowed to consider the planning appeal inspector’s report when making his decision - but it was not relevant to this application.
Mr. Coleman said the COMIN were not acting as an appeal body but as a tribunal of first instance and thus were not restrained in only having to take regard of the inspector’s report; and in fact, he emphasized, they had a statutory duty to consider all matters.
Mr. Coleman suggested there was some evidence, in the Chief Minister’s affidavit, that the COMIN had wanted to over-ride the recommendation of the inspector, to refuse the application, but couldn’t decide how they could go about doing so. Therefore, they came up with a reason to the refuse the application, but that was not the real reason for refusal; and so there is a question whether they have fulfilled their statutory requirement.
A number of other issues were argued by Mr. Coleman, but he described the aforementioned as the crux of their argument.
Mr. Helfrich, appearing for COMIN, Mr. Caine appearing for DLGE, Mr. Taylor appearing for Malew Parish Commissioners and Ms Pitts appearing for individual third parties, for all intents and purposes, disagreed and that the decision of the COMIN was sound and did not need to be sent back to COMIN for a fresh decision.
At one stage the government advocate was called to see if he could assist the court on the issue of having the matter ‘revisited’ by the COMIN; but it was doubted he had.
A spokesman for the Ballasalla and District Residents Association (BADRA), who oppose the development proposals, commented afterwards they are cautiously optimistic that Deemster Sullivan will dismiss the petition.
Judgment is due to be handed down on 16th December 2008.
Meanwhile the DLGE Minister John Shimmin MHK, appeared live on Manx Radio’s ‘Talking Heads’ programme, on Friday (5th Dec), to encourage the public to let his department know what type of planning system they want the Island to have in the future.
The consultation period on the review of the planning process is due to come to an end on the 15th December.
In reply to a question from the Manx Herald’s editor, Andrew Jessop, Mr. Shimmin said he could not give an assurance that he would be able to sort out the problems with planning on the Island ‘once and for all’.
As honest a response as it may be, the Manx Herald is concerned the response will give little hope to the public the Island will have a planning service, in the immediate future, in which they can have any real faith.
**With thanks to the Manx Herald for the article.