Lancaster City Council and developer Centros have issued the following statement regarding the proposed Canal Corridor development, which we publish here in full:
Lancaster City Council will take a leading role at the inquiry to promote the development of the Canal Corridor North.
The purpose of the public inquiry is to enable an inspector, appointed by the Secretary of State, to advise her on how to determine this set of planning applications and associated applications for consents.
It is quite different from an inquiry into an appeal against a refusal of planning permission, which would involve the local authority defending its decision against the applicant’s proposal.
In this call-in inquiry, the planning inspector will expect both the local planning authority and the applicant to appear alongside each other to make the case in favour of the grant of permission.
Statutory bodies and third party objectors are able to be represented. They will be given opportunity to challenge the applicants and the planning authority and to put forward their own case to try and persuade the inspector that planning permission should not be granted.
The applicants promoting the Centros development will be there in support of Lancaster City Council. They remain committed to the scheme but believe the cost of having to incur further professional fees in order to repeat the arguments they have already made would be unnecessary in this case. This is not least because these extra costs would implicitly impact on the overall developments costs for the proposal and may compromise the funding available to bring about the community benefits associated with the scheme.
The city council’s decision to take a lead at the inquiry is based on a number of grounds, including the defence of its Planning Committee decision. It is not defending the applicant but is defending the council’s strategic objectives in line with national and regional planning policy for the Lancaster district. Also, whatever the outcome of the Centros application, the city council will be pursuing the comprehensive redevelopment of this site and therefore clarity from the Secretary of State is needed as to whether or not the strategic direction for this site is the right one.
The City Council has allocated £50,000 to fight the public inquiry on the side of the developer, which has been condemned by the Green Party (see news story).
Links
• It’s Our City Campaign Site
• Centros’ Castle View Development Site
• Council Regeneration Strategy documents on the council web site (PDF files)