Ombudsman rejects Bluestone complaints (From Western Telegraph)

Ombudsman rejects Bluestone complaints

Complaints over the handling of the Bluestone Holiday Village planning application by some Pembrokeshire National Park members have been highlighted in the Local Government Ombudsman for Wales' annual report.

The ombudsman rejected the complaints that the members, all county council representatives, had breached the authority's code of conduct by failing to declare an interest. It was claimed they had predetermined the application because they had been a party to the county council's decision to grant consent for part of the development, which fell within the county council's remit.

He saw no evidence that the members' opinion and the way they voted were based on anything other than what they regarded as the merits of the case and what they saw as public interest, or that they failed to have regard to officers' advice.

The case was one of the snapshot summaries highlighted in the annual report. Another, also involving the National Park, concerned the building of a cowshed less than 80 metres from the complainant's house.

The authority had wrongly assumed the house was in agricultural use and that the neighbour was not required to submit a full planning application. The park authority compensated the complainant by meeting reasonable costs of fitting double glazing to those windows facing the cowshed.

In all, there were eight complaints against the Park Authority, between April 2003 and March 2004. Of these, five were not pursued and three were resolved without report. The Ombudsman also dealt with 36 complaints against Pembrokeshire County Council.

Thirty of them were not pursued and the other six were resolved without public reports.