Council officials say they’re planning to ignore Anglian Water’s objection to new housing developments on sites which the authority has already earmarked for homes.
Anglian Water officials told South Holland District Council at a previous meeting, in December, that the company would not be supporting planning applications where there isn’t sufficient infrastructure to cope with the additional demand on the system, writes Local Democracy Reporter Oliver Castle.
The company can comment on applications – but isn’t a statutory consultee and has a duty to connect homes that are built, regardless of what it says about the plans.
At a meeting of the councils Performance Monitoring Panel last week, Paul Jackson, the executive programme director for infrastructure and housing delivery, criticised Anglian Water’s approach.
“From a planning perspective, we do accept that network capacity concerns are valid concerns in determining planning applications,” he said. “But from the perspective of determining planning applications, I think that approach that Anglian Water is suggesting is a bit lightweight and it doesn’t read each individual case of its individual merits.”
Mr Jackson explained that the authority is considering ignoring Anglian Water’s objection to new housing developments on sites which are already allocated within the district council’s local plan – saying the firm has ‘missed the boat’ on those.
“Anglian Water is the statutory consultee on local plans – not on planning applications.
“The local plan was adopted on evidence derived from 10 years ago. Anglian Water has known for 10 years that those sites have been allocated.
“They should have objected at the time if there was a capacity concern.
“They didn’t and they can’t, at this late stage, put in an objection, expect it to carry any weight on a site which has been through the full planning process and has been allocated.
“So the advice from a planning perspective is that where Anglian Water objects to one condition on allocated sites, we can’t adopt that approach.
“It’s unreasonable. The condition doesn’t stand the test of capacity – it’s unsupportable.
“We’re suggesting we go back to them and say that we require detailed evidence that there’s insufficient capacity through the network.
“They need to provide information on a site-by-site basis.”
Coun Allan Beal raised concerns about the additional time that this could add to the planning process and possible costs to the authority and asked if Anglian Water would support appeals.
Mr Jackson said the water board had been “categorical” that it would defend its case in an appeal.
He added: “The difficulty, however, is that if the reason for refusal is not defended robustly, the developer has the right to apply for costs for the unnecessary appeal or the cost of defending or supporting their proposals.
“The cost would be passed on to the council – it wouldn’t fall to Anglian Water and that’s why, I think, we’re very clear in recommending that we need Anglian Water to provide their evidence in advance”.
The proposal will be considered by the district council’s planning committee and will be brought back to a future performance monitoring panel meeting before a final decision is made.
