REGARDING the recent report of the planning application for up to 110 houses on farmland at Sedbury being refused, this is still shown as pending on the council website. The apparent reason for this relates to "risks to the council of any appeal against a refusal and the impacts on the council's five year land supply".

Legal advice has apparently been sought on both of these matters and "the advice obtained sets out significant risks to the council if the decision to refuse is confirmed on the grounds proposed at last month's committee."

This advice appears to have been taken rather late in the procedure – actually after the application had been voted on and rejected – but this matter has been dogged by irregularities, such as none of the planning committee being informed that a previous application for this site had been refused at the highest level.

Given that the council is proposing an attempt to overturn its own decision by putting it before the planning committee again, in the interests of transparency it would seem essential that this legal advice be published in full, particularly as at the last meeting the committee was informed that a document which had not been included in the supplied information was saying one thing, when it was in fact saying the opposite.

It should also be noted that some land adjacent to the application area has already been put on the market, presumably to allow further expansion of the proposed development were the decision to refuse it overturned.

– Martin Broadribb, Sedbury.