Council leader to look into Norton Lindsey poultry farm amid planning outcry

The long-running saga over whether a poultry farm should be granted permission on land at Ward Hill in Norton Lindsey, ran for more than five years amid objections and failed at appeals.

The district council’s planning committee supported the recommendation of planning professionals to say no again in January 2023 on highway safety grounds but further work by the applicant, Mr A Audhali, saw Warwickshire County Council – the council that looks after highways – withdraw that objection.

Cases, progress on them and the documents that relate to them get uploaded to the planning authority’s – in this case Warwick District Council’s website – but paperwork laying out the county’s revised position and the district’s appeal statement acknowledging it no longer had grounds to refuse permission were not uploaded until May 1, 2024, after the appeal had been heard.

Both were produced in November 2023.

The inspector’s report said that interested parties had been notified of the appeal, "so would have been able to view the additional submitted information”.

It adds: “They would also have seen both the council’s and appellant’s appeal statements… I am therefore satisfied that interested parties have had the opportunity to comment on the technical highway information as part of the appeal process.

“The highway authority would have been aware of previous concerns and comments by interested parties.

"The fact the highway authority has not commented on any further comments from interested parties is not determinative in this case.”

It is not clear whether that position assumed that the documents had been put on the district council’s website or if it was making reference to their availability elsewhere.

Councillor Jan Matecki (Con, Budbrooke) raised the matter at a meeting for all councillors, noting that leader Councillor Ian Davison (Green, Leamington Brunswick) had been copied in on correspondence.

He said: “The inspector allowed the appeal. In his report, he referred to two documents that he had received, saying there had been no comments from anyone else about them, that no one had challenged these documents.

“These two critical documents were not made public by this council until after the inspector’s decision.

“There is a huge outcry from residents of Norton Lindsey about this and I am not very happy about it either.

"It has absolutely destroyed confidence in the planning process.

"What is the administration going to do to restore public confidence and make sure that this never happens again?”

Cllr Davison took the question in the absence of portfolio holder for place Councillor Chris King (Lab, Leamington Clarendon), whose remit is planning.

“I am sorry, I am not sufficiently up on this to be able to answer now but you are raising a very good question about transparency and due process,” said Cllr Davison.

“I will certainly investigate and give an answer to all councillors, so thank you for raising it.”