THE CHAIRMAN of a council planning committee which has incurred costs after turning down an application for a house of multiple occupation (HMO) has warned colleagues about taking the advice of professional planning officers “lightly”.
Cllr Tyssul Evans said costs awarded against Carmarthenshire Council by planning inspectors came out of the planning department’s budget and in time affected what officers could do.
The Plaid committee chairman said “members (councillors) always complain about the slowness of some of these decisions and things like this don’t help the situation”.
Planning officers decide most applications and recommend others for approval or refusal by the planning committee. Councillors on planning committees sometimes go against these recommendations which can lead to appeals and if the appellant seeks costs they can be awarded if the committee is deemed to have acted unreasonably by a Welsh Government-appointed planning inspector.
Planning officer Hugh Towns told a meeting on July 2 about two appeals following decisions by the committee to turn down HMO applications in Trinity Road, Llanelli, against the advice of officers. A planning inspector upheld both appeals and also awarded costs against the council in one case while no costs were sought in the other.
Mr Towns said the costs weren’t known at this stage and reminded committee members that “objective and site-specific evidence” was crucial when making decisions.
Referring to decisions about HMOs he said: “Generalised concerns, local opposition, and potential stereotyping carry very, very limited weight without evidence to substantiate those issues.” Committee decisions, he said, “must be evidence-based and evidence-led” and relate to policy.
Cllr Evans said: “It is a worry that members are taking lightly what officers are telling them at times.”
Cllr Steve Williams said he felt the committee had provided evidence of parking issues in the Llanelli application which had led to costs. And he said the absence of what he described as a full HMO register “is not a failure of committee members”.
Cllr Williams said there were only 14 registered HMOs in the whole of Carmarthenshire according to a recent freedom of information response he’d received and he was sure there were more than 14 in just the ward covering Llanelli’s Trinity Road.
He said he was “a little bit miffed” about the inspector’s decision as he was aware of an appeal by a householder who wanted to build an extension which was dismissed on parking grounds.
Cllr Terry Davies said he understood the concerns raised by Mr Towns but added the committee didn’t have up-to-date data about HMO concentrations and impacts which he believed would help it defend decisions.
HMO applications often lead to objections from people living close by and Cllr Davies said crime and behaviour arising from HMOs created pressure locally. “Residents expect timely and visible action from us,” he said.
He added that a council task and finish group was looking into HMO issues. The council has a register which, as of February this year, showed six licensed HMOs in the county with a seventh in the process of obtaining a licence.
Cllr Russell Sparks said he recalled saying at the planning meeting when the Trinity Road HMO applications were turned down that the committee didn’t have the evidence to go against the officer recommendations. He also said Cllr Davies had “made some very good points about how the community feels”.
