Telford & Wrekin Council reveals it spent £75,000 on planning rows last year
A council has revealed it has spent over £75,000 in the last year fighting planning applications.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that in the financial year 2022/23 Telford & Wrekin Council spent £71,287 on planning appeals and was ordered to pay £3,750 in costs.
A planning applicant can apply for a planning inquiry, carried out by a Government-appointed inspector, if they contest the council’s decision to reject their plans.
The council has blamed the planning rows over the Steeraway and New Works Lane solar farms for the increase in money spent on planning appeals compared to previous years.
During the previous financial year (2021/22) the council spent £27,448 on planning appeals; £13,944 in 2020/21 and £5,293 in 2019/20.
Telford & Wrekin Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for homes and enforcement, Councillor Richard Overton said: “We’re a council on the side of our residents and where a planning decision will have a negative impact on the borough, and we have legal grounds to support this view, we will challenge it.
“The increase in what we’ve spent on planning appeals in 2022-23 is largely due to appeals which sought to defend the reasons why the council refused applications for two substantial solar farms to be developed in the surrounds of the Wrekin – some of our most valued strategic landscape.
“The cost of these appeals have been covered by the fees paid by the applicants to put the initial planning application forward for consideration.”
Plans for a 99-acre solar farm on the New Works Lane site in Lawley were rejected by the council in October 2021 – with the authority stating the ‘harm would outweigh the benefits’.
Developer Greentech Invest appealed the decision for the solar farm, which it says will create enough power for 8,600 households each year.
Following an appeal inspector Mike Robins agreed with the council’s decision. However, Government junior minister, Lee Rowley MP, has since overturned the decision and approved the solar farm.
The council is currently waiting to hear if it can legally appeal the decision at the High Court.
Telford & Wrekin Council also refused plans for the Steeraway solar farm, at the base of The Wrekin, stating that it was in an ‘unacceptable location’.
A three-day planning inquiry was held in March which resulted in inspector Matthew Shrigley approving the solar farm.
The council found out last month that it would not be allowed to contest the decision in the High Court.
Combined the solar farms would cover 230 acres, the equivalent of 174 football pitches, and the council claims that the Steeraway site alone will have 77,000 solar panels.
Both solar farms are a stone’s throw from the Wrekin which the council states is one of its “most strategically important and much valued landscapes.”
The council stated that the £3,750 costs it paid in the last financial year are not associated with the solar farm developments.
In the previous four financial years, the council paid no costs at all.
