PLANNING APPLICATION GOES TO APPEAL

An appeal has been lodged with the planning inspectorate over Kerrier District Council’s failure to determine an outline application to develop 27 acres of land at South Crofty. 

The planning application was originally submitted to Kerrier by Crofty Developments Ltd on 12 February 2004.  Three months later, in May 2004, the council requested an environmental impact assessment and, in the form of a scoping document, provided a brief for the subject areas that the assessment needed to cover.

Crofty Developments spent nine months compiling the in-depth, 500 page report and submitted it on 28 February 2005.  According to planning rules, the council had 16 weeks to consider it.  However, effectively 24 hours later, in a letter of 2 March, Kerrier requested additional information – including some highly comprehensive data that would normally be required in a detailed planning application.  A series of letters from Stephen Payne Planning Ltd, the company’s planning consultants, requesting clarification went unanswered.

On 15 June, Crofty Developments had a meeting with a Kerrier planning officer to discuss the progress of the planning application.  The company was told that the council was still waiting for responses to the environmental impact assessment from statutory consultees like English Nature and the Environment Agency.  On 19 August, Crofty Developments was sent those responses – some of them dated in early June – together with another request for yet more information not included in the original scoping document.  Whilst the council waited for that information, the company was told that their planning application would be suspended.

The deadline for Crofty Developments to appeal to the planning inspectorate on the grounds of non-determination of the planning application was 2 September.  Kerrier District Council proposed an extension of time to consider the application but, in view of all that had gone before, the company reluctantly took legal advice to go to appeal.

‘It was something that we didn’t want to do because we have always felt that this application should be determined locally,’ said Charles Stericker, Director of Crofty Developments. ‘We are proposing a major mixed development on 27 acres of land in the heart of the Camborne Redruth community and we firmly believed that local people should be part of the consultation process. Sadly, however, Kerrier has left us with no alternative but to go to the planning inspectorate.  We were advised that if we missed the appeal deadline, we risked continuing delays, potentially running into years.  Few people would disagree that the South Crofty site is currently an eyesore and that it is pivotal to the area’s regeneration.  We believe that our plan to move the mine’s operations to a six acre plot around the Tuckingmill Decline, the lowest part of the site, and to transform the remaining 27 acres into a visually attractive, self-sustaining community will do nothing but enhance Camborne and Redruth. It is a £100 million scheme that will result in more than 1000 jobs and our plan has always been to use private, rather than public, investment to fund it.’

The outline planning application submitted to Kerrier includes a heritage centre to complement the county’s world heritage bid, houses, offices, retail premises, a health centre and a care home.  Working in close partnership with Baseresult Holdings Ltd, owners of the South Crofty site, the aim of Crofty Developments has always been to ensure that the working mine can comfortably co-exist with a sustainable development that meets the aims of the local regeneration plan.

‘Although we have faced criticism from some for daring to propose a scheme that will see full operational mining return to South Crofty whilst, at the same time, transforming the scarred landscape, there are many people locally who have openly supported what we are trying to do,’ said Mr Stericker.  ‘We wanted them to be able to have a voice when it came to determining the application but Kerrier’s continued procrastination has made that impossible.  My colleagues and I are truly sorry for that.’

The application will now be decided by a government-appointed planning inspector. 

                                                                                                8 September 2005